


Chelsea Parker, PhD, and the Mystery of the Missing Manuscript

by language_escapes



Series: Chosen and Defined 'Verse [14]
Category: St Trinian's, St Trinian's (2007 2009)
Genre: Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Femslash, Minor Character(s), Multi, Mystery, POV Female Character, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/language_escapes/pseuds/language_escapes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Chelsea's mentor brings a newly discovered manuscript to the University, Chelsea is ecstatic. That is, until the manuscript is stolen and she is blamed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chelsea Parker, PhD, and the Mystery of the Missing Manuscript

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Woldy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woldy/gifts).



> This fic is for woldy, who purchased me during the Purple Dove auction and has been incredibly patient with me all these months. I really hope this is all right! My thanks go out to uberniftacular, my beta, and especially to Sapphy, who Britpicked for me. You're both amazing, and this wouldn't have worked without you! All mistakes left are mine. Also, I'm an academic, but not in English Lit, so please forgive any bumps along the way. Takes place seven years after the end of HCSD.

Chelsea Parker is many things.

She is a graduate from St. Trinian’s, which means she is skilled in the art of explosions, confidence trickery, the planning of theft and heists, cheating, the brewing of all alcohols, and coming up with solutions to any sort of problem.

Furthermore, she is a Posh-Totty, which brings with it its own bag of tricks. As a schoolgirl, she wore Gucci and Prada and Hollister, and used them to buy her way into wherever she wanted. Now she wears Armani and Anne Valérie Hash and Givenchy, and refuses to let people assume that her clothes define who she is. Posh-Totties communicate using the body, in whatever form it may take. Half-lidded eyes, a twitch of the wrist, crossed arms- body language is the art of the Posh-Totty. Sex is their favorite medium.

Chelsea is also a loving wife. She’s been married to Yvette for four years now; she takes out the trash and does the dishes, and she’s the big spoon on the nights when Yvette will tolerate her love of snuggling. Yvette manages the budget and stresses about Chelsea’s spending habits; Chelsea runs to the Tesco once a week and buys Yvette’s disgusting cereal. They argue about hair in the drain and whose turn it is to hoover. It’s disturbingly domestic.

And Chelsea is a PhD in Literature, a professor at Queen Mary, University of London, and at the moment, rather pissed off.

She is sitting in front of Dr. Webster, the head of her department, in her Armani suit, smiling with all of her Posh-Totty charm, looking at his crossed arms, furrowed brow, scowling face, and thinking it would be easier to convince Yvette to let her buy a new Christian Dior than convince Jack Webster to let her teach Shakespeare her way. Nothing St. Trinian’s, nothing Posh-Totty, is going to work.

“Jack,” she tries, adding a little bit of pout into her voice.

“Chelsea,” he interrupts, his voice firm and unyielding. “I believe I’ve explained this rather succinctly. Your proposed syllabus isn’t acceptable. You’ll need to revise it.”

Dr. Jack Webster is a weedy looking man, with large ears and thick waves of red hair. He specializes in twentieth century war literature, and Chelsea finds him dull, finds his entire subject dull, finds it so incredibly obvious and really, he isn’t even doing anything new or exciting in the field of literary theory, just pounding away at the same old novels as his forefathers. In Chelsea’s opinion, Hemingway has been done to _death_.

So has Shakespeare. But as she will be only in her second year of teaching, she gets stuck with Shakespeare 101.

“I don’t understand why it isn’t acceptable,” she says, removing all traces of coyness from her voice and becoming just as firm as him. If that’s the way he wants to play it, fine. She didn’t get through graduate school by playing nice. She can be as cut throat as anyone else.

Dr. Webster raises an eyebrow. “You want to talk about Shakespeare as a _woman_.”

“Which was proven by scholars nine years ago,” Chelsea says.

“That document is still being debated.”

Chelsea mentally sighs. _Queen Lear_ and the letter have been proven authentic by almost every Shakespeare scholar in the field, and yet people still listen to the stray voices who shout louder than the experts. She places her hands on his desk and leans forward, looking serious.

“Dr. Webster, understanding that Shakespeare was a woman who cross-dressed as a man vastly redefines how we contextualize several of her pieces. Think about _Twelfth Night_ , _The Merchant of Venice_ , _As You Like It_ , and several of the sonnets. And these are just the obvious choices. We are doing students a disservice by continuing to teach them that Shakespeare is a man,” she argues.

She knows she has lost the argument already. Dr. Webster is shaking his head and running a long, thin hand through his unruly hair.

“Dr. Parker, I appreciate your feelings on the subject. But we would also be doing our students a disservice to be presenting them with shoddy research.” He smiles at her, and hands her back her proposed syllabus. “I tell you what. You can do a day where you present this argument to your students, all right? Let them decide for themselves.”

Chelsea takes back her syllabus, forcing a smile onto her face. She knows from long practice that it looks genuine, because she is a Posh-Totty and a St. Trinian’s girl, and time and circumstance and life have made them capable of smiling when they want to cry or frown or burn down the world. He thinks he is being generous, allowing her a day. What he is being is patronizing. But he is also her department chair, and despite their conflicts, he is also a good colleague, so she simply nods and stands.

“Thank you for your time.”

******  
When Chelsea imagined herself as an academic, as a professor, all those years ago, she imagined herself standing in the front of a classroom of bright young things, smiling brightly, glasses perched on the end of her nose as they stared at her in rapt adoration. She imagined sitting in an office, reading from a book as sunlight poured in from a large bay window. She imagined typing away at her laptop and drinking tea, the agonies and ecstasies of brilliance pouring from her mind, much like she remembers her mother going through when she was a child. She imagined going to conferences and meeting other academics, and having them praise her brilliance, her insights, and being a superstar in the world of literary theory. She imagined publishing articles and books and being asked to give lectures at other universities.

What she got was rather different, all in all. Her students are a mix of indifferent, lazy, and bored, though she has a handful of truly bright, curious ones who more than make up for the rest of the lot. Her office is small and cramped, with no windows, and she generally finds herself buried under a stack of papers or books at least once every day, when she accidentally knocks one over by _breathing_ wrong. Chelsea is a brilliant lecturer, wonderful at public speaking, but her writing comes in fits and starts, and each article has to be pulled from her in inches. She’s published, yes, and she’s received awards, but queer theory in literature is still a small field, and no one particularly cares.

And of course, there are the things no one told her about, like having to be part of academic councils and financial councils and judicial councils, all because she’s the youngest professor in the English department, and they all get foisted off on her. She has grants to apply for, and student recommendations to write, and she’s expected to show up at department parties and sip truly horrendous drinks. There’s tenure to worry about, and the continual pressure to publish, which Chelsea had known about in theory, but the application is so much worse than she had imagined.

She loves it, though. She couldn’t imagine doing anything else with her life.

******  
Outside, it’s damp, and there are puddles on the pavement. Chelsea expertly navigates around them as she digs out her mobile from her handbag and hits speed dial number five, knowing immediately the one person who will be available at this time in the afternoon. She needs a drink. Now.

The phone connects, and Chelsea says immediately, “Kelly. Kelly.”

“Chelsea,” Kelly’s voice purrs on the other end. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“How do you feel about tea?” she asks, dodging a cyclist.

“Celia’s shop?” Kelly asks without pause. Chelsea looks down at the watch on her wrist, a gift from Yvette. She’s notoriously late to everything. The watch had been a hint. It doesn’t help much, but the watch is lovely.

“Can you be there in twenty?” she asks. It won’t take her that long to get across town, but she doesn’t even know if Kelly is in London. For all she knows, she’s actually at her home.

“Make it fifteen,” Kelly says, and the phone goes dead in her hand. Chelsea smiles and clicks it shut, dropping it in her bag and looking around for a cab.

******  
Kelly doesn’t work a regular job. Not since the disaster that was MI7, seven years ago now. She lives in her cottage with Polly and Annabelle, just outside London, and leads a quiet enough existence, and Chelsea is happy for her. It isn’t as if Kelly does nothing, after all. Occasionally she’ll lecture at St. Trinian’s, or assist Polly with whatever she’s doing. She works odd hours at Celia’s shop and Anoushka’s bar. She’s worked as a file clerk for Chloe. Chelsea knows that when Andrea and Taylor need a third woman for their business, Kelly is always ready to lend a hand. Kelly keeps busy. She just doesn’t keep regular hours.

So she’s there when Chelsea needs her, ready with a steaming cup of Darjeeling, a sympathetic look already on her face when Chelsea sits down and explains what happened.

“I just don’t understand it,” Chelsea says with a long suffering sigh, gulping her tea and wincing as she burns her tongue. “My dissertation was female authors using male pseudonyms, and the queer themes contained within their works. Were they expecting a traditional class?”

Kelly hums and rubs her foot along Chelsea’s ankle. “Polly tells me this is the world of academia.”

Chelsea glares at her. “Polly doesn’t know anything about academia.” Polly is brilliant and publishes articles when the mood strikes her, but she never went to Uni, and she stays away from most academic circles. It has always seemed odd to her, but then, as much as she adores Polly and considers her one of her closest friends outside of Peaches and Chloe, _Polly_ seems odd to her.

“Sorry,” Kelly shrugs.

“It’s different, anyway. Polly likes the sciences, and I’m a literary theorist,” Chelsea continues, and pulls her plate over to her, beginning to pick apart her muffin. She’s not particularly hungry, but it had seemed a good idea at the time. “Do you know how many people have analyzed Shakespeare, Kelly?”

Kelly looks up from where she has been studying her hand. She smiles. “A lot?”

Chelsea nods gravely. “A lot. I may have helped discover she’s a she, but she isn’t where my true love lies. George Sand, Kelly. George Eliot. Eliot George. And my favorite, Michael Field. Do you know who Michael Field is, Kelly?”

Kelly just stares at her, so Chelsea continues, ripping off a chunk of muffin. “Michael Field was _two women_ , Kelly. Who felt so connected they used one pseudonym. You see?”

Slowly, Kelly picks up her teacup and drinks from it. Chelsea glares at her and eats some of her muffin.

“I think perhaps you should have called Polly. Or Lucy. Or maybe even Harriet. Anyone who might have understood this conversation,” Kelly says finally.

“Oh, rubbish,” Chelsea says, scoffing and waving an impatient hand. “Don’t give me that, I know you read all that poetry nonsense.” Kelly starts to interject, but Chelsea continues on blithely. “And anyway, you’re doing wonderfully. Just agree with me, say you love the same authors, and you’ll come out fine.”

“Michael Field,” Kelly says dryly, nodding. “Oh, the queerness.”

“It’s simply frustrating,” Chelsea says, sighing. “To know that you’re good, that you’re one of the best, and to have other people telling you what to do.”

“We are the best; so screw the rest,” Kelly quotes, smirking. Chelsea bursts into laughter, tossing her head back and clapping her hands in delight. It’s been a while since someone has quoted the school song to her. Not even Peaches or Chloe do. The other patrons look over at her in annoyance or amusement, but she ignores them. It’s Celia’s teahouse; she can do whatever she likes here.

She quiets down and smiles at Kelly. “If only,” she says, sighing. “But it’s a little different at university level.”

“Do something revolutionary, Chelsea,” Kelly urges her, reaching across the table to steal a bite of her muffin. “Shake up the literary world. Make them quake in their dusty old books.”

Chelsea pushes the rest of the muffin over to her and pulls out her lipstick so she can reapply it. “I already discovered Shakespeare was a woman,” she points out, raising an eyebrow. “What else can I do?”

******  
There are other things to be done, of course, and Chelsea puts her conversation with Kelly out of her head in order to prepare her other classes and adjust her Shakespeare lectures accordingly. In addition to the Shakespeare, she’s doing a basic introductory composition lecture and her usual queer literature lecture. This term she’s focusing on the works of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. She’s not as widely known, but Chelsea finds her fascinating, nonetheless, and from the number of students signed up for the course, she assumes others do as well.

She’s been given a research assistant, which makes her smile. Everyone expected Tara to join Tania in Chemistry, but she’d disappeared into English, following a desire that no one had foreseen. Chelsea has only taught her for two classes before, and had been concerned that it would be awkward, but Tara is remarkably professional, never bringing up the fact that she has seen Chelsea pissed and wearing only a bustier. She hadn’t wanted a research assistant, originally, but when Tara revealed that she (and Tania) was staying at Queen Mary’s for her post-graduate, Chelsea hadn’t the heart to refuse the assignment. If there is anyone she trusts not to mess up her admittedly haphazard organization system, it’s Tara.

Everything is going swimmingly, and Chelsea has just about resigned herself to yet another term of boring mediocrity when everything shifts at the departmental party.

Generally, nothing happens at the departmental parties. They are endlessly dull, and Chelsea loathes them nearly as much as she delights in their ridiculous gossip. The only person who hates them more than her is Yvette.

“Chelsea,” Yvette says, looking up at her, her smile forced and so obviously fake that it pains Chelsea to see it, “Isn’t it time to go yet?”

Chelsea dips her head down and gives her a swift kiss, squeezing her hand. “We’ve been here for twenty minutes,” she says.

Yvette sighs. “Fuck.”

“I know. Why don’t you go get us something to drink?”

It’s a diversionary tactic, and they both know it, but Yvette shrugs a shoulder and begins weaving her way through the crowd anyway. The department isn’t particularly large, maybe thirty or forty professors in all, but they’ve all brought spouses or dates or some sort of guest, not to mention various other administrative types arriving, which makes for a rather packed hall. Chelsea looks around for someone that she likes and is displeased to only see the tweed posse, as she calls them. Most of them don’t actually wear tweed- at least, not all the time- but it’s the _attitude_ they have. It’s like talking to dust. They don’t even have the good sort of gossip, or the ridiculous sort. They just stand there and mutter about their research, which has been the same for the past thirty years, and honestly, Chelsea doesn’t care, she can just read it on the Uni website, she doesn’t need the live recitation.

“Contemplating diving in?” someone says behind her dryly, and Chelsea laughs, turning.

“God, no. You?” she asks, smiling politely at Patricia. Dr. Patricia Rich is not part of the tweed posse, but she isn’t really someone that Chelsea speaks to regularly. She’s in her mid-forties, with shaggy dark brown hair and deep laugh lines around her eyes. She has a perpetual squint that Chelsea has always found a little off-putting.

Patricia lifts a glass to her lips and takes a sip of something that has a flower garnish. Pimms, she presumes. “And listen to the tales of summer research? Stories and stories of summers in the stacks? No, I think I’d rather eat glass, thanks.”

Chelsea laughs. It’s true; that’s basically what every story will be tonight. “You never know, Pat. We might hear a few interesting things.”

“Not from them,” Patricia says. “You, maybe. Are you doing anything interesting this term?”

Chelsea shrugs. “Doing a lecture on Colette. Focusing on the queer themes in her lesser known works- I’ll look at the Claudine series, but only briefly.”

She watches as Patricia’s eyebrows climb toward her hairline. “Not your usual focus. I thought you focused on George Sand.”

“She does,” Yvette says, reappearing by Chelsea’s side and handing her a glass of the same drink that Patricia is holding. “Obsessively. You should see our flat.”

“I picked up the books,” Chelsea says mildly, taking a sip from the glass and immediately wrinkling her nose. It’s absolutely disgusting. No one in their department has ever figured out the right amount of lemonade to add.

“And left the papers everywhere. I swear, it’s like visiting your mum.”

They laugh, Patricia looking slightly uncomfortable, and Chelsea gestures to Yvette. “Patricia, you’ve met my wife, Yvette, yes? Yvette, this is Dr. Patricia Rich. She does postmodernist literature. Focuses on John Updike.”

Yvette and Patricia nod politely at each other, and then Patricia looks back at Chelsea. “So are you taking a break from Sand?”

“No, not exactly. Just looking to do something new,” Chelsea says easily. She takes another sip of her drink, and wishes that post-grads were allowed at faculty parties. Tara is still ace at spiking drinks. Even the rubbish she and her sister made when they were first formers could only improve the terrifying blend they’re trying to pass off as quality.

“Well, that takes guts. I’m not leaving Updike until I get tenure, myself,” Patricia says, grinning.

“You never know,” Chelsea says loftily, beginning to walk away, “Maybe I’ll find something revolutionary with Colette, and they’ll just have to give me tenure.”

Patricia laughs as she and Yvette walk away, and Chelsea wishes it weren’t so laugh-worthy. She really wants to turn around, stare Patricia down and say, _I discovered Shakespeare was a woman,_ , but that ship has sailed, and she actually likes Patricia well enough; it isn’t worth it. She finds her calm in the sound of her heels clacking over the wooden floor, and Yvette sighs.

“I don’t like her,” she says. Chelsea looks at her in surprise.

“Really? Why not?”

“Grifter’s instincts,” Yvette replies, frowning. She turns to look back at Patricia, who is talking to Dr. Redfern (poetry, T.S. Eliot, _boring_ ) and her frown deepens. “You don’t see it?”

“I don’t talk to her very often,” Chelsea admits. “And when we do speak, it’s generally to complain. She isn’t tweed, but she isn’t exactly a friend.”

Yvette stands there, watching Patricia for a moment, and then shrugs carelessly. “And really, Updike?”

Chelsea bursts into laughter and leans down to kiss Yvette. She loves her wife. Yvette doesn’t particularly care to read, and when she does, it tends to be cheap mystery novels, but she has opinions on literature that always surprise Chelsea. Yvette’s hands slide around her waist, and Chelsea closes her eyes, smiling. People are probably staring at them. It isn’t polite to snog one’s spouse at the faculty party. She doesn’t particularly care.

“Not a fan of Updike, then?” she asks, when she ends the kiss.

“Man was an ass,” Yvette grumbles. “I’m going to see if Lara is here.” Lara Farmer is the department’s administrative assistant, and one of the few people both of them like. Chelsea lets her go with a bright smile, and then scans the crowd to see if she sees any interesting faces.

She spots David Faye huddling by the staircase and lights up. Dr. David Faye is her closest friend in the department. They’d met at her very first department party, when he’d introduced himself by saying, “Please just tell me you don’t study Stein and we’ll get along fine.” They’d bonded over their boredom with the Lost Generation, and never looked back. David studies Brecht. Chelsea breezes through the gathered professors and sidles up to his side, linking her arm through is.

“Darling,” she coos in his ear. “Where have you been all my life?”

“If you listen to all of them,” he replies, not looking at her, “I should have been in the stacks.” She giggles, and then he finally looks at her, beaming. “Look at you. You just glided through the crowd, like a swan. And in those shoes! Those heels must be six inches.”

“Don’t tell my wife,” Chelsea says, running a hand through David’s salt-and-pepper hair, “But these are Louis Vuitton’s latest.”

“Is that a designer?” David asks. Chelsea gives him a look, and he sighs. “Not all gay men care about fashion, Chelsea.”

“Of course not,” she replies, “But you’re my colleague. And _I_ am a walking fashion plate. You should know these things, David.”

“What, through osmosis?” he asks, but he smiles as he says it.

“Where’s Greg?” she asks instead, changing the subject and scanning the crowd. She’s only met Greg a few times, but she’s extremely good with faces, and she would know him anywhere.

“At home with the kids,” David says. He sighs. “Lucky bastard.”

“Oh, don’t,” she laughs. “You love these as much as I do.”

“Like a hole in the head.”

“But the gossip, darling. The _gossip_.”

“If you can get through the endless work chatter.”

Chelsea gives him a dry look. “Damn academics.”

David grins. His teeth are horribly crooked, which Chelsea finds endlessly charming. It makes his smile that much more real. “Shall we?” he asks, gesturing toward the crowd.

She takes his arm. “Let’s.”

They wander through their colleagues together, enduring the work chatter, but she and David are an excellent team, and together they manage to tease the better gossip out of people. They look at Dr. Millett’s new watch, like everyone else, but unlike everyone else, they’re the ones who learn that it’s a gift from her girlfriend- the one her husband doesn’t know about. They nod politely as Dr. Fisk rambles endlessly about the Chaucer archives, and how fascinating they were, but after a few apparently innocent questions, they mange to get the story about his drunken night out on the town. Everyone coos over Dr. Caron’s ugly baby and wishes him a happy sabbatical, but only she and David find out that he intends to spend it at his parents’ house, because he and his wife found cockroaches in theirs. They nod sympathetically when Dr. Kendrick explains that she has a broken coccyx, and that she got it while researching in Mexico, but they learn that she got it while waterskiing for the first (and last) time. Dr. Denick and Dr. Miller are still together, and everyone knows it, though they still think it’s the best kept secret in the universe. Dr. Henderson’s mother died, and she inherited a sizeable estate and is thinking of retiring from teaching. Dr. Teng is being courted by Oxford. Dr. Samos just found out that he apparently has a son in Essex.

All in all, it’s a very average departmental party, and as much as Chelsea hates it, she loves it just as much.

“She has to sit on an inflatable doughnut for four months, Yvette,” Chelsea giggles, holding Yvette’s hand as they walk out to the car. “It’s tragic, it really is. Tabitha is never going to live down what the students will do to her.”

Yvette rolls her eyes and sighs. “I’m glad you find her tragedy so amusing.”

Chelsea covers her mouth and tries to stop laughing, but on the other side of her, David is laughing even harder. “Yvette, no, it’s horrible! It’s horrible! But even Tabitha is laughing! You’d understand if you had to stand up there in front of the little monsters everyday,” David laughs. “They’re going to destroy her.”

“And Maurice’s baby is hideous, did you see her ugly little face?” Chelsea sighs. “That girl is going to grow up to be heartbreaker, I guarantee it.”

David sighs. “Jonathon looked just like that when he was born. Wretched little prune.”

Yvette smiles over at him as she unlocks the car. “He’s adorable now, David. He really is.”

“I can’t believe he’s already four,” David says. “They grow so fast.”

Chelsea beams at him and kisses him on the cheek. “It was lovely to see you again, David. We should grab tea sometime before the beasts take over all our time.”

David grabs her hand and looks at her seriously. Chelsea pauses. “What’s this I hear about you giving up on Sand?” he asks.

“Oh, Christ,” Chelsea says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not _giving up_ on Sand. I’m teaching a seminar on Colette, that’s all.”

“Rich said something about trying to find something revolutionary in Colette.”

“It was a joke! Patricia needs to find a sense of humor.”

David frowns. “Call Bernice.”

Chelsea mirrors his frown. Bernice Allowitz was one of Chelsea’s tutors, her thesis advisor, and is one of the leading Sand scholars in the world. “Why?”

David reaches over and pulls her into a tight bear hug. Even as tall as she is, even in her six inch heels, David dwarfs her, and he tucks her head in underneath his chin. “You don’t need Colette,” he whispers in her ear. “Keep with Sand. Call Bernice.”

He kisses her ear, waves good-bye to Yvette, and then jogs over to his own car, calling good night. Chelsea watches him for a moment, and then crawls into the car, pulling out her mobile.

“Bernice, what’s this David tells me about Sand?” she shouts into the phone as soon as it connects, not caring that it’s nearly midnight in London, which means it has to be almost two in the morning in Tallinn. Yvette glances away from the road, startled, and then looks back. Chelsea knows her well enough to read her thought process. _My wife is barking mad; just focus on the road_.

“Parker, is that you? Of course it’s you-what am I thinking? I was going to call you tomorrow; can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“What does Faye know?” Chelsea whines, reaching down to yank off her heels. The shoes are gorgeous, six inches of heavenly delight, but heavenly delight is painful as well.

“Found a manuscript,” Bernice says after a moment, a faint click coming through the phone’s speakers. Chelsea can imagine her sitting up in bed, turning on a lamp and reaching for her glasses. “By Sand.”

Chelsea’s heart stutters, and she clutches her shoe. “Oh. My. God. Why did David know before me?”

“Because, Parker,” Bernice growls through the phone, “Faye was with me when I got my hands on it. Wasn’t my fault you didn’t visit me this summer.”

Chelsea pauses. “Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’. I needed to authenticate the damn thing first before I involved you. Believe me, you’re the first scholar I’m going to involve.”

Yvette gives her another glance, but Chelsea ignores her in favor of unbuckling her seat belt and leaning over into the backseat to dig through her bag, looking for a pen and her notebook. She finds them quickly enough and drops them into her lap. “What are we looking at?”

Bernice laughs hoarsely into the phone, and Chelsea cringes. She imagines that’s what Kelly’s laugh is going to sound like when she’s Bernice’s age. Though Bernice smokes a pipe, not cigarettes. “Just like I said. New Sand manuscript.”

“Fiction, non-fiction?”

“Fiction. Right up your alley, too.”

Chelsea raises an eyebrow. “Queer themes?”

“Queerer than a boat of gerbils.”

“That expression doesn’t make sense, Bernice,” Chelsea sighs, tapping her pen against her notebook. Yvette looks over and frowns.

“Should I pull over?” she whispers. Chelsea shakes her head quickly.

“No, darling, we’re fine,” she replies.

“Exactly- queer,” Bernice says gruffly, oblivious to the whispered conversation between Chelsea and Yvette. “Anyway. I’m flying into London next week and bringing the manuscript. You and I are going to be the first people to read it, Parker. Which means we’ll be the first to write anything about it.”

Chelsea feels a thrill roll through her stomach, and she flaps her hands about, knowing that she looks ridiculous. “Oh. My. God. What about David?”

“What about Faye? He’s a Brecht scholar- why would he give a flying rat’s arse about Sand?”

Chelsea screams in delight and slams her hand on the dashboard. Yvette looks over in alarm but keeps driving. Her wife knows her only too well. The last time she had done that was when Peaches had told her that she’d gotten them front row seats at a Lady Gaga concert.

“Bernice, God bless you and your kin,” Chelsea screeches. She hears a grunt in her ear.

“Whatever, Parker. Don’t think I’m doing you any favors. I’ll expect damn good work from you. Now get off the damn phone, I was sleeping. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Bernice hangs up before Chelsea can do much more than squeal incoherently in her ear. She drops the mobile in her lap and then turns to look at Yvette, who is looking generally unimpressed with the state of the world. She squeals louder and claps her hands together as quickly as she can.

“Yvette!” she shrieks.

“Chelsea,” Yvette sighs in resignation.

“Guess who is going to be one of the first people to examine a previously undiscovered George Sand manuscript?” Chelsea says, bouncing up and down in her seat. Yvette smirks.

“Dr. David Faye?”

“Yvette!”

Yvette takes a hand off the wheel and reaches across the middle of the car, stroking her cheek gently. “I’m happy for you,” she says softly. “I am. But please, stop screaming before I accidentally drive us into an articulated lorry.”

******  
“Oh. My. God,” Chloe and Peaches say at the same time. Chloe puts her hands to her mouth and squeal in delight. “That’s wonderful, Chelsea!”

“When is she arriving?” Peaches asks, pouring them all more lemonade.

Chelsea, Chloe, and Peaches have lunch together every Wednesday, no matter what. Chelsea has never scheduled a class for noon on Wednesdays; Chloe stops hostile takeovers and refuses to meet with stockholders; and Peaches insists that her thugs, smugglers, and drug dealers find somewhere else to be at noon. It is only in times of a St. Trinian’s emergency that they have broken their engagement. Since Chelsea graduated from University and returned to the United Kingdom, that has only happened a handful of times.

“Monday, after classes. I’m picking her up from the airport,” Chelsea says, taking a bite of her avocado and bean sprouts sandwich. She wipes her mouth delicately. “You know Bernice; she refuses to take cabs.”

Peaches winces. Of the two of them, she’s the only one to have met Bernice personally. Cabs had been involved. It hadn’t gone well.

“Did she tell you what the manuscript is about?” Chloe asks, biting into her pickle. Chelsea shakes her head.

“She wants it to be a surprise. She keeps insisting that I’ll love it, and that it really connects a great deal of my work.”

Peaches taps a thoughtful finger to her lips. “So less subtext and more text, then, do you think?”

Chelsea shrugs carelessly, picking up her lemonade glass. “I really couldn’t say. It would certainly make my day if one of the most famous cross dressers of all time would write something blatantly homoerotic, but I can make subtext out of anything. Put two female characters in the same room together and I’ll make an argument that they’re desperately in love because of the way the chair is positioned.”

Chloe and Peaches laugh, and Chelsea smiles over the rim of her glass. It’s funny, but it’s also true. It’s part of her job. Literary criticism is part work, part art, and part making it all up as you go and hoping no one calls you out on it.

“Oh, speaking of subtext,” Chloe says suddenly, reaching into her purse and pulling out a small notebook, “if either of you have stock in Castanal Limited, I would suggest selling before tomorrow. Just an idea.”

Peaches grabs her mobile and dials her financial advisor immediately. Chelsea is fairly sure she doesn’t own any stock- she’ll double check with Yvette tonight- but she texts her mother and then shoots one off to Polly as well. Once it reaches Polly, everyone from St. Trinian’s will know, and they’ll all be safe.

“Thank you, Chloe,” Peaches says, smiling as she hangs up. “I appreciate the advice.”

“They fought hard,” Chloe laments, picking at her sandwich, “but not hard enough. I enjoyed firing their CEO today. He cried. It was beautiful.”

******  
Bernice looks exactly the same, Chelsea thinks, smiling fondly at her old mentor.

“Parker!” Bernice barks from across the terminal. “Stop grinning like a stoned undergrad and come help me with my bags!”

She sounds exactly the same, too, Chelsea thinks ruefully as she scrambles over to her, ignoring the looks she’s getting from other passengers. It’s good to know that some things remain the same.

Dr. Bernice Allowitz is a short, fat woman with iron gray hair that she keeps trimmed in an incredibly unflattering buzz cut. She wears coke-bottle glasses, smokes a pipe, walks with a cane, and wears ill-fitting suits. Her mouth is curved in a perpetual scowl, she is nearly incapable of speaking in anything below a yell, and she is one of Chelsea’s most favorite people in the world.

“How’s Tallinn?” she asks, taking Bernice’s suitcase, careful not to chip her nail polish. She just got her manicure this morning.

“Estonian,” Bernice says flatly. She walks swiftly ahead, her cane slapping a neat staccato on the tile. “We aren’t taking a cab, are we?”

Chelsea scoffs. “What do you take me for, a freshman? Peaches sent a limousine.”

“That the girl that picked me up in a cab last time?”

“She sends her regards.”

Bernice laughs. “Sweet kid.”

“That ‘kid’ could order a hit on you.”

Bernice tosses Chelsea a grin over her shoulder. Her grins don’t look all that different from the scowl unless you know what to look for. “I’d like to see her try.”

“I give you even odds,” Chelsea says solemnly. Bernice snorts.

“Oh ye of little faith.”

Chelsea just laughs a little and tries to keep up with her dear friend, rolling the suitcase behind her. They reach the limousine, the chauffeur scrambling for the door, but Bernice elbows her out of the way and opens the door herself, shoving her satchel in front of her before crawling in herself. Chelsea gives Aubrey an apologetic look and allows her to hold the door while she steps inside.

“You know, the chauffeur is there for a reason,” Chelsea says, sliding carefully onto the leather seat, checking to make sure her skirt doesn’t get caught in the door. Aubrey is a professional, but the skirt is couture, and she isn’t taking chances.

“To look pretty and drive. I can open my own damn door,” Bernice grumbles. She’s digging through the satchel and paying Chelsea no mind.

“I’m sure Aubrey appreciates knowing that she’s a pretty face,” Chelsea says. “What are you looking for?”

Bernice yanks out her pipe and a pouch of tobacco. Chelsea wrinkles her nose and sighs. “That’s such a nasty habit.”

“Hasn’t killed me yet.”

“Operative word: yet.”

“I’m seventy-six, Parker. A woman deserves some nasty habits this late in life. You, now. You, you don’t get any until you reach my age.”

“That argument might work if I didn’t know you started smoking when you were fourteen,” Chelsea says, smirking.

Bernice lights her pipe and grins around the stem. “And look who’s still here to tell you the tale.”

There’s a momentary lull in the vehicle, and then Chelsea shifts. She could sit here exchanging quips with Bernice all day, but she’s already growing restless, and she can tell that Bernice is just waiting for her to ask. So she does.

“Bernice,” she bursts. “What is it?”

Bernice’s smile is wicked. She pats her satchel. “Like I told you- new George Sand manuscript.”

Chelsea sighs. “That tells me nothing.”

“Looks to have been written in 1850,” Bernice says, sinking back in her seat and closing her eyes. She puffs for a moment on her pipe, and then continues. “Dedication is in memory of Marie Dorval.”

Chelsea perks up immediately. “The actress that she may or may not have been in love with, depending on who you ask,” she states, and Bernice nods.

“Right. And the year-”

“It would have been written after Dorval’s death,” Chelsea says, mimicking Bernice by closing her eyes and thinking quickly through her mental fact file. “Dorval died in- what, May? 1849.”

“Got it in one. This seems to have been finished in February 1850.”

Chelsea licks her lips and thinks for a moment. She’s been studying Sand since she was nineteen, but she’s always had trouble remembering dates. “She only wrote one other thing that year,” she says slowly.

“So. Think about _Un Hiver à Majorque_ , _Lucrezia Floriani_. Even _Lélia_ , really.”

“Drawing from her own life,” Chelsea says slowly, and opens her eyes. Bernice is staring at her. “And this along the same lines?”

“It’s called _Pour l’amour d’elle_.”

“Not exactly subtle, was she,” Chelsea says, laughing. “Bernice, I must see it.”

“Not in the car,” Bernice says, “You know better.”

And she does, of course, but her fingers are just itching with the desire to touch the manuscript, to read the beautiful French that must be there, to see what scholars and gossips have wondered for over a century.

George Sand and Marie Dorval, she thinks. She helped prove Shakespeare was a woman; proving once and for all that Sand and Dorval were more than intimate friends shouldn’t, ultimately, be any harder.

******  
Tara is waiting for them when Aubrey pulls up in front of the Arts Building. Bernice is throwing open the door before Aubrey can even stop the car, and Tara hurries over.

“Dr. Allowitz,” she says, smiling, “It’s a pleasure-”

“Here,” Bernice interrupts, thrusting her satchel at Tara. “You take that. You’re that girl Parker won’t shut up about, right? Trust you not to damage it.”

Tara grabs the satchel and then shoots Chelsea a look as Bernice bustles past her, cane thumping an uneven rhythm on the pavement as she pauses here and there to look around or avoid the puddles that remain from the morning’s rain. Chelsea smiles and pats Tara on the shoulder as she follows. Bernice can be a little… abrupt, it’s true, but she has come to expect it. Tara, she thinks, will as well.

“What floor is your office on?” Bernice asks when they walk in and reach the lift.

“Third,” Chelsea says, reaching over and hitting the up button. She hears Tara come up behind them and turns to give her a quick wink. Tara rolls her eyes back. That’s the one downside of having Tara as her student; she doesn’t put up with much bullshit from Chelsea. “Bernice, I don’t believe I’ve properly introduced you to Tara yet,” she says, hoping to make it up to her.

Bernice turns and looks at Tara. “Winchester, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Tara says, nodding.

“Known Parker long?”

Chelsea winces, but Tara just smiles blithely. “Oh, years.”

Bernice gives Tara a long, considering look, and then smiles slowly. “You’re a St. Trinian’s girl, aren’t you?”

The lift arrives, depositing a small group of harried looking graduate students, and the three of them get in. Tara hits the button for the third floor, shifting the satchel into her left hand, and nods. “Of course.”

“Thought you type went more for the life of crime,” Bernice says.

“And yet,” Chelsea says, sighing, “Here I am.”

“And here I am,” Tara says.

Neither of them bother mentioning that they are still, technically, criminals. Aiding and abetting is a crime, after all. And Chelsea is pretty sure that Tara blackmails her fellow students, though she’s never inquired.

“Don’t get any fancy ideas about stealing the manuscript,” Bernice warns, and Tara snorts.

“Yes, because screwing over a fellow St. Trinian’s alum is precisely my goal,” she says dryly, and brushes past both of them when the lift doors open. “St. Trinian’s women may be criminals, Dr. Allowitz, but there is a little something called honor among thieves.”

Bernice watches her for a moment, and then looks up at Chelsea, her smile nearly sharklike now. Chelsea has always found that disconcerting, but she’s fairly used to it by now. “I like her,” Bernice declares, and follows her quickly.

Chelsea rather thought she might.

Tara has already unlocked her office door and let herself and Bernice in by the time she catches up with them. She walks in and blinks. When she left this morning, her office was the usual disaster zone that it is everyday. Now, all her books are put away, her papers have disappeared, and her desk is completely cleared off. She gives Tara a suspicious look.

“You can’t examine a manuscript that’s over a century old in your usual chaos,” Tara says, setting the satchel down on the desk, which is apparently a cheap Ikea knockoff. She’d forgotten what it looked like underneath the reams of work.

“Show me,” she tells Bernice, no longer willing to wait. Bernice barks out a laugh, and then opens her satchel carefully, withdrawing a sealed envelope. She hands it to Chelsea, who immediately sits down and pulls on a pair of clean, white gloves. She is going to treat this document with respect. She’s seen a few of the original Sand manuscripts in the past, but this is the first she’ll touch. Her mouth practically waters from need.

“It’s not fragile, Parker,” Bernice says. “Get on with it.”

Chelsea glares at her, and then looks at Tara, who nods at the filing cabinet behind her. She opens it and pulls out a white cloth, which she drapes over her desk. Then, carefully, she pulls out the manuscript from the envelope.

Bernice is right, of course; the manuscript isn’t fragile. It’s written on thick, heavy paper, and has clearly been immaculately preserved over the years. The ink is only slightly faded, and everything looks perfectly intact, unlike so many manuscripts Chelsea has seen over the years. It isn’t bound together, just a sheath of loose papers, but she can see little handwritten page numbers at the bottom. The manuscript appears to be roughly three hundred pages long, the handwriting small and round and neat. Chelsea touches the cover page reverently.

“ _Pour l’amour d’elle_ ,” she says softly. “By George Sand.”

“About a young actress named Sophie,” Bernice says, easing herself down in the chair across from Chelsea, where her students usually sit. “Who falls in love with an artist named Armand, only to discover that Armand is really Annette, a bored noblewoman.”

“Oh. My. God,” Chelsea says, and she’s too busy staring at the manuscript to do the hand gestures.

“Well, that should help your research,” Tara says, laughing.

“How does it end?” Chelsea asks, looking up.

Bernice grins. “Parker, do you really think I’m going to tell you? Read and find out.”

So she does.

******  
“And so, Annette divorces her husband, walks away from her children, and goes to be with Sophie, only to discover that Sophie is dying of tuberculosis. Stuff happens, eternal love is declared, and it would all seem like just another novel where there are dead lesbians, but after Sophie dies, Annette takes on the responsibility of providing for Sophie’s children, and so her love and devotion carries on,” Chelsea says, waving her hands in the air.

Bella and Saffy sigh in unison. “That’s beautiful,” Saffy says.

“Gorgeous,” Bella agrees.

“What’s even better,” Chelsea says, leaning across the table to steal a sip from Saffy’s tea, “is that it’s all true. After Dorval died, Sand provided for her grandchildren.”

Saffy reclaims her tea and crosses her ankles, pursing her lips. “Wasn’t it rather dangerous for her to write such an obvious novel?”

“Well, from what Bernice tells me, it doesn’t look like she ever sought publication for _Pour l’amour d’elle_ ,” Chelsea replies. “It’s not as though lesbianism was a crime, like male homosexuality in England at the time. And she always did love ripping on Chopin in her novels, so I guess she thought writing a novel in memory of Marie Dorval couldn’t possibly damage her reputation any further. Many already thought she was a lesbian.”

“It’s so romantic, though,” Bella says, smiling. “When I die, you’d better write a novel about us, Saffy.”

Saffy gives Bella a rather incredulous look, which Chelsea privately agrees with. Saffy, God love her, is not the most verbally talented of St. Trinian’s women. Chelsea glances mournfully at her empty teacup, wishing for more but unwilling to get up from the table and purchase it.

The three of them are, of course, at Celia’s teashop once more. She’d finished reading the manuscript yesterday and had been just bursting to tell someone about it. Yvette, of course, knows the entire story. Chelsea suspects she could recite it by now, after her hour long rambling the night before. She’d visited Peaches and Chloe and told them all about it. Kelly, Annabelle, and Polly had listened to her bubble enthusiastically over the phone, Polly asking piercing questions about the authentication process, Kelly gleefully ranting about taking on the world of literature, and Annabelle quietly but firmly ecstatic.

She has an hour before she’s expected back at the College, and contacting Saffy and Bella had seemed appropriate. All Posh-Totties love stories of romance, but the two of them had been more prone to indulging their love than most others. With them, she can be excited about the _novel_ , and what the story possibly means about Sand, rather than listen to Yvette’s concerns about credit or Polly’s fascination about dating technology and how it’s advanced over the years.

“If only Sophie didn’t die,” Saffy says, sighing.

“I think she died because Marie Dorval did,” Chelsea says, shrugging elegantly. “I suspect it would have ended differently if she had lived.”

“Or maybe it never would have been written,” Bella points out.

“Or maybe Sand would have left her various male paramours and gone to stay with Dorval; who knows?” Celia says, walking over to their table with a teapot. She pours more tea in Chelsea’s cup, and Chelsea smiles gratefully. “Maybe, like, the novel is the story of their love and what Sand _wishes_ would have happened.”

“She would never have wished Dorval dead!” Bella exclaims instantly, clapping her hands over her mouth in horror.

“No,” Chelsea agrees, “But that might have been reality slipping into her novel.”

“Oh, that poor woman,” Saffy says. Chelsea sees Bella shift and imagines that they’re holding hands under the table. She doesn’t look down to see.

“Some say Dorval was the true love of her life,” Chelsea says, lifting her teacup and blowing the steam away carefully. “This novel might help make that case.”

“Or you’ll get a load of people reminding you that it’s fiction,” Celia says, walking over. She sits down at the fourth, empty spot and pours her own cup of tea, adding cream and sugar with quick, practiced movements.

“Sand is known for using elements of her own life in her novels.”

“Critics will claim that this isn’t one of them.”

“But-”

Celia raises an eyebrow. “Remember Shakespeare, Chelsea. There are still naysayers.”

“Gits,” Bella and Saffy say in unison. Chelsea sighs dramatically and leans back in her chair. Celia’s right, of course. A novel proves nothing. Still, a novel about lesbian love from one of the most famous cross-dressers of all time, from an incredibly famous writer in general, is a huge coup d’état for queer literature.

“What will you be doing with the manuscript, precisely?” Celia continues, her voice gentler. Probably trying to soften the blow of reality, Chelsea suspects, and she sits up straight, setting her teacup down and clasping her hands together with joy.

“Well, I have to read it several more times, of course. Take notes. Then I need to figure out which direction I want to take with my article. Bernice will be exploring the elements of proto-feminism in text-”

“Of course,” Bella says. She, too, has met Bernice, and has been subjected to a lengthy lecture about how feminism existed well before the suffragists.

“So she’ll be looking at what Sophie’s role as an actress in 1830s France means, and how Annette walks away from the symbols of womanhood.” Chelsea taps her lip thoughtfully, considering what she’s read in the manuscript. “Which, really, leaves so much for me to look at. I’m so used to dissecting subtext, I almost don’t know what to do with _text_.”

“Aren’t you going to make the case that Dorval and Sand were lovers?” Saffy asks.

Chelsea laughs. “Of course! But for the first article? I’d like to stick strictly to the text.”

Celia gives her an amused look. “Why?”

Chelsea starts to answer, but then pauses. Because Celia’s right. Why should she stick to the text when George Sand gave her gold, and she can go straight for it? She’s Chelsea Parker, PhD, and the discovery of this manuscript and what she writes could make her career. Playing it safe might be the smart thing, but Chelsea went to St. Trinian’s. Playing it safe was never what any of them did. They take risks; they break rules. They believe in anarchy. And she can’t imagine anything better than releasing the manuscript and immediately asserting that, after over one hundred years of debate, she can offer literary evidence that Sand had at least one female lover in her life. Throwing the field into chaos sounds absolutely delightful.

“You’re right,” she says finally, and Celia grins, her eyes lighting up.

“You’re going to knock them all on their arses,” Celia says, and takes a prim, calm sip of her tea.

And oh God, she really is.

******  
Chelsea settles into her work. She, Bernice, and Tara- who studies how popular political movements influence literature, and so will be examining the effects of the 1848 revolution and French socialism in the text- come up with a routine in order to prevent squabbling over the manuscript. While Chelsea is teaching, Bernice gets the manuscript. Tara gets the manuscript during Chelsea’s office hours and while Chelsea is at lunch or in department meetings. Chelsea gets the manuscript any other time.

Dr. Webster, despite his many flaws, bends over backwards to accommodate them. Chelsea suspects this is mostly due to Bernice being a force of nature. She demands a special room to examine the manuscript, as well as a vault to store it in when it’s not being studied. They get it, though Chelsea sees the envious looks she gets from her fellow professors.

“I don’t understand why you get another office,” Patricia says in the faculty break room, looking up from her book when Chelsea comes in to grab her lunch from the refrigerator. Chelsea sighs. She’s been getting this all day from the tweed posse, and she’s really rather tired of it.

“Bernice Allowitz is a visiting lecturer. She also brought a rare and undiscovered manuscript to the College so that one of its professors and students can be the first to study it. _I’m_ not getting another office. The manuscript is,” she explains, possibly for the fortieth time this hour. She pulls out her lunch and smiles vaguely at the hearts drawn on the bag. Yvette had packed her lunch this morning, as Chelsea had been running late. As always. Still, it’s sweet.

“It isn’t fair,” Patricia says.

Chelsea sits down across from Pat and gives her a hard look. “When you discover a rare manuscript, I’m sure Jack will give you a place to store it as well.”

They spend the rest of their lunch in silence.

Unfortunately, Patricia isn’t the only one outside of the tweed posse to complain. David catches her on her way to teach Shakespeare 101 (today, the amazing fact that _Romeo and Juliet_ is a tragedy!) and frowns tightly at her.

“Another office?” he asks, and Chelsea would throw up her hands in disgust and exasperation, except that she’s laden down with books and papers to hand back (and dear God, she would really expect English majors to understand basic grammar, but apparently not), and she settles instead for looking up at the ceiling and asking the tiles above her for strength.

“Not you too,” she says.

“Do you realize they kicked Tabitha and Elaine out of that office in order to give it to you? Now they’re sharing with Ajay and Ralph,” he says. Chelsea cringes. Ajay studies Greek writers while Elaine studies Roman, and the two have had a long standing feud about which were more enlightened. Ralph uses Freudian psychoanalysis in all of his theory, while Tabitha uses Jungian. Even though the two agree on so much, they spend most of their time shooting poisonous remarks at one another.

“Whose brilliant idea was that?”

“Chelsea, you’re disrupting the entire department,” David says, and reaches over to take some books from her arms. She gives him a grateful look, and they start walking down the hall toward her classroom.

“I can’t help it, David. It wasn’t my idea,” she says. David sighs.

“Look, finish up with that thing soon. Or the department is going to dissolve into an outright warzone, rather than our usual No-Man’s Land.”

“Oh, David,” she says fondly, and leans over to kiss his cheek. “Always the peacemaker.”

“Not really,” he says, grinning. “I’m just sick of Ralph bitching to me. Like I care about the merits of Freudian psychoanalysis.”

It isn’t only Chelsea, though, that is catching grief from her colleagues. Tania appears in her door one day during office hours, short and stern, still wearing her lab coat from whatever class she has.

“Tania,” Chelsea says, setting aside the essays she’s marking. “This is a surprise.”

Tania walks in and shuts the door before sitting down across from Chelsea and folding her arms. Watching Tania and Tara grow up has been one of the joys in Chelsea’s life. They’ve been through too much in their lives, but then, they all have. Chelsea remembers the wide-eyed girls in matching braids; now, Tania wears her hair in a pixie cut while Tara still keeps her hair long. Tania and Tara both wear glasses, though Tania opts for thick frames while Tara wears wire rims. Now, Tania and Tara’s eyes are harder, meaner, not prone to wide-eyed wonder. She still sees it, sometimes, in Tara. She only sees Tania occasionally, due to her demanding Chemistry schedule, but she likes to imagine that all the joy hasn’t been burnt out of her.

“Dr. Parker,” Tania begins, and Chelsea rolls her eyes.

“Tania, please.”

Tania’s mouth quirks into a slight smile, and she nods. “Fine. Chelsea. I have a slight problem.”

“If it has anything to do with Chemistry, you might want to look elsewhere. My GCSE’s were atrocious, and I’m still thankful I dropped science for my A-Levels,” Chelsea says airily, even though she can already guess what this is about. Tara has been looking hunted recently.

“No, Chels,” Tania says, and she finally smiles. “I’d go and talk to _Kelly_ about Chemistry before I spoke to you.”

Chelsea laughs. Even though Tania hadn’t been at school when Kelly blew up the Chemistry lab at St. Trinian’s, she’d heard the story enough to know that Kelly is not really good at science.

“No,” Tania continues, sobering. “I’m here because Tara is… she’s having some trouble.”

Chelsea figures she has two ways to play this; she could act like she has no idea what Tania is talking about, or she could cut to the chase. But Chelsea acted dumb for years, and she swore when she got her PhD that she was done with that. So she sighs and leans back in her chair. “Jealous peers?”

“Jealous and _angry_ ,” Tania confirms. “I thought Chemistry post-grads got angry when other students were selected for prime assignments. And then this happened.”

“Has anyone threatened her?” Chelsea asks, concerned. When she was a student, already famous in her department for the Shakespeare discovery, she’d incurred a number of jealous, angry looks. But she’d never been threatened, and if Tara is, she’ll have to intervene.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Tania says, waving her hand dismissively. “They know better. But she’s losing friends over this, and Tara… well. She’s sweet. For a St. Trinian’s girl. And it’s hurting her.”

Chelsea licks her lips and runs her hand through her hair. Tania stares at her, eyes hooded. “What do you want me to do?” asks Chelsea, knowing that she sounds a bit desperate and completely unprofessional. But she isn’t acting as Dr. Parker right now. She’s acting as Chelsea, who knew Tania when she would crawl into bed with her during thunderstorms, clutching her stuffed bear and trying hard not to cry.

“Finish whatever you’re doing,” Tania says. “And get that manuscript out of this school.”

“Tania…” Chelsea begins, but Tania shakes her head.

“I’m excited for you, Chels, you have no idea. Tara, too. This will be the feather in her cap, get her into any doctorate program she wants. But she’s my sister, and she comes home crying because her friends are angry at her. I’d do anything to protect her. Anything,” Tania says, and she looks so fierce that Chelsea remembers, just for a moment, the Tania that crawled through sewers, the Tania that wiped blood off faces, the Tania that picked up a gun before she was fifteen and desperately tried to protect those she loved. That Tania is obscured now behind her respectable lab coat and thick black frames. Chelsea doesn’t doubt her for a moment.

“I’ll try to push us ahead of schedule,” Chelsea says solemnly. Tania nods and stands, brushing her lab coat off carefully and then smiling, her features young and carefree for an instant.

“Going to take the English world by storm, Dr. Parker?” Tania asks.

Chelsea laughs. “That’s my plan, Tania. That’s my plan.”

******  
Bernice is less than thrilled.

“Parker!” Bernice yells, banging into their shared office, and Chelsea looks up from the musty page she’s on, carefully translating the French and making notes in her notebook.

“Bernice,” she say dryly, and blows an air kiss at her. There’s no need to be rude.

“Heard a funny rumor. From Jack Webster. He says that the manuscript will be out of this office in a week,” Bernice growls, coming forward and giving Chelsea a chilly look. Chelsea sets down her pencil and folds her hands. It’s best to deal with Bernice head on, she learned long ago, especially when she’s in a temper.

“Yes, I decided that was plenty of time for Tara and me to finish up what we needed.”

“What about me?” Bernice asks.

“You’re in charge of the manuscript, Bernice. You can take it anywhere after here,” Chelsea reminds her.

“How could you possibly have everything you need at the end of this week?” Bernice asks, coming around and sitting on the stool across from Chelsea. Her suit is rumpled and her hair is a mess; she looks like she came straight from her hotel. Chelsea resists the urge to tug the wrinkles out, her fingers clenching automatically as she imagines artfully adjusting Bernice’s hair.

“My notes are extensive,” she says calmly. “And I’ve already written half of my article.”

She has, in fact. It’s the easiest thing she’s ever written in her life, even easier than her dissertation, and the moment Bernice announces the manuscript (in another month), she’ll release her article, and from there- well.

From there, she creates a maelstrom.

Bernice stares at her. “And Tara?”

“Not quite half, but her notes are even more extensive than mine.” Chelsea smiles fondly at Bernice. “I’m not happy about it, but having the manuscript here has disturbed the entire department. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can rectify that.”

Bernice frowns. “Surely your colleagues have done something like this before.”

Chelsea laughs, tossing her head back. “Find an unpublished manuscript by one of the most famous authors in the world? No, Bernice, I can’t say that anyone here has. They do their share of amazing research, certainly, but this is unique. They’re seething with jealousy.”

“Academics,” Bernice grunts, shifting her hip uncomfortably.

“Silly twits, all,” Chelsea says, smiling.

“This is why I got out,” Bernice says with a sigh. “Should do the same, Parker.”

“Bernice, you’re seventy-six. I’m only twenty-eight. I’m not ready to leave it all behind.”

Bernice favors her with a steady look, eyes darting over Chelsea’s face. Chelsea looks back, calm, knowing perfectly well that Bernice will concede in the end. She was her favorite student, back in the day. And this is Chelsea’s university; she knows what’s best.

“Very well,” Bernice finally says, sighing. “One week. I can be done by then.”

Bernice grins at her. Chelsea grins back. They can do this.

******  
And then it all goes to hell.

Chelsea is walking to her office, coffee in one hand, briefcase in the other, trying to juggle the two in order to pull out her keys from her DAKS trousers, when two men accost her. She drops her coffee and briefcase immediately, instincts taking over as she goes for her pepper spray, and she doesn’t even care that the coffee is ruining her Jimmy Choos, because two men just grabbed her in the middle of the hallway, and no one is doing anything.

“Dr. Parker, you need to come with us,” the first man says, and Chelsea is pulling out her pepper spray when the second man says, “Security,” which really, he ought to have led with, because it’s early and she didn’t even notice the uniforms.

Chelsea blinks, and the past seven years have taken their toll on her trust, so she says, “May I see some identification?”

The second man pulls out a badge, which Chelsea examines carefully. She remembers the forgers at St. Trinian’s, and how easy it was to make just about anything. This, however, looks genuine.

“All right,” she says, and purses her lips.

She’s escorted to Webster’s office, and when she walks in, she sees that Tara is already there (her mascara running down her face, a look of stubborn resolve on her face) as well as Bernice (looking furious and put out, and really, what the hell is going on?). Chelsea sits down in the empty chair between them, and looks at Jack.

“Jack, what the hell?” she says.

“The Sand manuscript is gone,” he says.

“What?”

“Someone stole the damn manuscript,” Bernice snaps, crossing her arms. “And guess who they think did it?”

Chelsea twists to look at her, and then turns to look at Tara, who won’t meet her eyes. She looks back at Jack, who is scowling. “Wait, you think one of _us_ did it?”

It’s patently ridiculous. Chelsea can’t believe that anyone would ever think such a thing. Of all the people in the department, the three of them have absolutely no reason to steal it.

“Dr. Parker, it’s no secret that none of you were pleased about having to send the manuscript away at the end of the week,” Webster says, and Chelsea stares at him.

“Of course not, but it’s what we agreed to! Why would any of us steal it?”

“To give yourselves more time,” Webster says.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Chelsea scoffs. “Anyone could tell you that I’m nearly done with my article anyway.”

“Chels…” Tara says, her voice soft.

“Tara, too,” Chelsea continues, ignoring her. This is so absolutely ridiculous, and she can’t believe the manuscript is _gone_. She needs time to process that, not deal with accusatory department chairs and security guards. “Both of us would be done by the end of the week. Bernice as well, I’m sure, though she of course was taking the manuscript with her, so if she needed more time she had it, which eliminates her as a suspect right away, so you see, Jack-”

“You’re almost done with your article?” Webster interrupts.

“Yes, of course,” Chelsea says.

“Chels…” Tara tries again, but Chelsea ignores her, because now isn’t the time.

“Then where is it?” Webster says, voice stern.

When Chelsea began writing papers, really writing them, not just throwing thoughts on a paper and hoping her teacher wouldn’t notice that they weren’t exactly coherent, she asked Polly’s thoughts on a backup system, because Polly was notorious for her backup systems. Polly had given suggestions, and so now, when Chelsea writes, she saves a draft on her office computer, a draft on her external hard drive, a draft on the flash drive she keeps in her office, a draft that she keeps on her traveling flash drive, and a draft on her laptop. She also saves a draft on GoogleDocs, and Dropbox, and on all three of her emails. Polly (and thus, Chelsea) likes redundancy in her backup systems.

So when Webster asks her where her paper is, Chelsea doesn’t really worry. “My flash drive isn’t in the vault?” she asks, calm.

“Everything in the vault is gone,” Webster says.

“That’s fine,” Chelsea says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I have backups.”

She pulls out her phone and opens her primary email account to show them her most recent draft, but it’s gone. She checks her Sent folder, but it’s empty. Chelsea pauses, frowns, and then flips over to her two other email accounts as well. They don’t have her paper either. She opens GoogleDocs, but the only thing there is her article on George Eliot that she’s been working on for months. Dropbox is similarly empty.

“Dr. Parker?” Webster asks, sounding annoyed.

“My external hard drive?” she asks, looking up from her phone.

“If you actually have one, it’s not in your office,” Webster replies.

Chelsea assumes the same is true for her work flash drive. But her travel flash drive and her laptop are at home.

“I need to call someone,” she says. “A friend. To check on my laptop at home.”

“We can’t allow any phone calls at this time, Dr. Parker,” says one of the security guards. Chelsea glares at him.

“You’ll all be here the entire time, monitoring my call.”

“You could be speaking in code,” the second security guard says.

Chelsea rolls her eyes. “Really?” she says acidly. “That’s what you come up with? Honestly, to think you work here. Look, let me call a friend. Or my wife. She’ll clear this whole thing up.”

The security guards exchange glances with Webster, ones that they think are coded, but Chelsea was a Posh-Totty. She reads people better than anyone. She can read, _can we trust her?_ , and she can read, _well, we WILL be listening_ , and so she opens her phone and is dialing before Webster says, “All right. You can call Yvette.”

“Chelsea?” Yvette answers, sounding confused. Chelsea never calls in the middle of the day.

“Darling,” she says. “Are you at home?”

“Just about to leave.”

“Go get my laptop and my flash drive. I need you to open up my Sand document.”

Yvette’s sigh is a rustle of static over the phone. “Chelsea, I really don’t have time-”

“It’s an emergency,” she says. Yvette stops talking immediately. She can hear the rush of Yvette’s heels on the stairs, a familiar thud that echoes over the phone. There are so many things that Chelsea loves about Yvette, too many to number, but somewhere on the list is that Yvette is calm and dependable in a crisis. Also, scary as fuck, but Chelsea doesn’t think that side is needed today. She hopes.

“What’s the document called?” Yvette asks, the sound of fingers on the keyboard clear over the phone.

“Sand document,” Chelsea replies. She’s not very clever when it comes to titling things.

There’s a lengthy pause. “Chelsea,” Yvette says slowly. “Chelsea, honey, are you sure?”

Chelsea’s stomach bottoms out, and she clutches her phone tightly. She doesn’t know what’s going on. If it’s not on her laptop, or her travel flash drive, that means it’s gone. And maybe Polly can ghost it back, or whatever fancy computer tricks she has, but that doesn’t help her now, and it doesn’t change the fact that someone _deleted her research_.

Through numb lips she says, “Thank you, Yvette,” and hangs up before her wife can say anything else. When she looks up, Webster almost looks sympathetic.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Parker,” he says. “But until we locate the document, I’m placing you on temporary suspension. You won’t be allowed on campus.”

“Tara?” Chelsea asks, feeling sick.

“Tara is on academic probation for the time being. I hope we can resolve this quickly.”

Chelsea glances over at Tara, who looks devastated. Understandably; it’s her first year in post-grad, and she’s been considering going for a doctorate afterward. Academic probation could ruin her. A temporary suspension could ruin Chelsea. She doesn’t know what they’re threatening Bernice with, and she doesn’t really care. Bernice isn’t really in the field anymore, and she’s only a visiting lecturer. The worst they can do is refuse to pay her.

“You’re dismissed. We’ll be calling you in for questioning later,” Webster says, and turns away from them to look out the window. Chelsea stands up, feeling wobbly, and walks out of the office with as much dignity as she can muster. She can feel Tara and Bernice following her, but she doesn’t look at them. If she does, she might cry. And she _does not cry_ in front of her department chair.

She walks calmly back to her office, unlocking and opening the door, allowing Tara and Bernice to follow her, and then, once she shuts it, puts a hand over her mouth and lets out a single, dry sob.

“What are we going to do?” Tara asks, sounding vaguely hysterical. She’s seated herself on Chelsea’s desk, her arms wrapped around her torso.

“Well, obviously, whichever one of you took it is going to give it back,” Bernice barks, and Chelsea stares at her.

“What do you mean? We didn’t take it, Bernice.”

Bernice snorts and peers at them both through her glasses. “You’re Trinian’s girls. Bunch of thieves and liars if I ever saw them. One of you had to take it.”

Which of course, Chelsea realizes, is exactly what Jack Webster and the security team are probably thinking. Trinian’s girls can’t be trusted. Trinian’s girls are thieves. Trinian’s girls are crooks. Trinian’s girls make a mess of everything they touch. It’s perfect, really, the way they’ve been set up.

“Bernice, I swear to you, we didn’t take it,” she says softly, staring at Bernice. Bernice stares back, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. After a moment, she turns and looks at Tara, who holds her gaze just as earnestly as Chelsea had.

“All right,” Bernice says finally. “I believe you. But if you didn’t take it, who did?”

And that, Chelsea thinks, is the million pound question.

******  
The rest of the day is spent being questioned by various people. First campus security, and then the police. Yes, Chelsea had the code for the vault. Yes, Chelsea was likely the last one to examine the document. Yes, Chelsea left the College at seven pm last night and had dinner with her wife at a French restaurant. Yes, Yvette can confirm that. Yes, they went home immediately. Yes, Yvette went to bed soon after. No, Chelsea stayed up late. No, she supposes that no one can confirm that she stayed at home. Yes, Chelsea went to St. Trinian’s. Yes, Chelsea is still friends with many of her schoolmates. Yes, many of them knew about the manuscript. No, Chelsea doesn’t think any of them had any reason to take it. No, Chelsea didn’t have any reason to take it.

“I understand you’re supposed to publish an article about this manuscript?” the police officer asks. Her accent is Welsh, Chelsea notes faintly.

“Yes,” she says.

“Where are your notes?”

“I don’t know. I had them backed up in a variety of places, but they’re all gone.”

“Suspicious, don’t you think?”

Chelsea gives her a withering look. “I really wouldn’t know.”

When she’s finally allowed to go, it’s nearly sunset. She has twenty-four messages on her phone, most from Yvette, some from Peaches and Chloe, and she ignores them all and turns off her phone completely as she gets in her car and rests her head on the steering wheel.

 _Pour l’amour d’elle_ is gone. Her notes are gone. Her half-written article is gone. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know when (last night, obviously, but her laptop? her travel drive?). She has no real alibi. She has no real suspects. She doesn’t know what to do.

She doesn’t want to go home.

So she doesn’t.

******  
Going home to Yvette is not an option. Neither is going to Peaches, where she’d have to wade through too many assistants and gang members in order to reach her. Going to Chloe would mean at least an hour of playing the happy aunt for Hannah and Hazel. So she drives an hour until she’s knocking on a familiar cottage door, which Kelly opens wide and stares at her.

“Oh thank God,” Kelly says. “Nobody has been able to reach you. Yvette’s ready to send out a search-and-rescue team. Get in here.”

Going to Kelly, Annabelle, and Polly might not be the best option, but it’s certainly better than her first three.

The cottage is warm, and homey, and Kelly sits her down on the sofa before disappearing into the kitchen. A moment later, Annabelle appears, looking concerned. She walks quickly across the room and wraps Chelsea into a hug.

“Oh, Chels,” Annabelle says quietly. “It’s Shakespeare all over again, isn’t it?”

And perhaps that’s it, Chelsea thinks as she begins to cry. Perhaps it’s loosing a precious, valuable, paradigm-altering document once more. Except this time, she doesn’t know who has it. This time, people seem to think she took it.

“Don’t hug me,” Chelsea sobs, trying to pull away. “I’m getting mascara all over your- my God, Annabelle, is that Yves Saint Laurent?”

Annabelle laughs and strokes her hair. “Even in her despair, she could note designer clothes,” she says sardonically.

“I’m ruining Yves Saint Laurent!” Chelsea wails, swiping desperately at her eyes.

“Her wardrobe will survive,” Polly says, walking into the room, Kelly just a step behind her. She hands Chelsea a handkerchief and goes to sit in the uncomfortable looking armchair across from the sofa. Kelly sits down next to Chelsea and pats her knee gently.

“I called Yvette,” Kelly says. “She’s desperately worried, but she’s glad to know you’re all right.”

Chelsea glares at her. She is not _all right_. She’s pretty sure she looks like an absolute mess at the moment, and she just ruined an truly gorgeous blouse by sobbing on it like a two-year-old.

Kelly ignores her, as Kelly is wont to do in these sort of situations. “I texted Peaches and Chloe, since Peaches was about to start a gang war on your behalf. And it saved Chloe the trouble of finding a sitter.”

“Thank you,” Chelsea says, sniffing.

“You’re welcome,” Kelly says, patting her knee again. Chelsea scowls. Her stockings have a run in them. A perfect ending to a perfect day.

“What happened?” Annabelle asks.

“You didn’t hear already?” Chelsea replies, incredulous. Polly chuckles.

“Yes, but let’s hear it from you.”

She tells them, as much as she can. By the end, she’s crying again, sobbing into the pathetic little white handkerchief that is slowly turning black from her eye makeup, and Annabelle has her arms around her again, Kelly patting her knee.

“Hmm,” Polly says.

“Brilliant, Polly,” Chelsea snaps. “In all your infinite wisdom, ‘hmmm’ is what you come up with. Genius, really.”

It’s not fair of her, but her comment seems to roll of Polly’s back. Polly just looks at her and raises an eyebrow. “So what are you going to do now?”

Chelsea opens her mouth to say something biting, something cruel, but she shuts it again after a pause. What _is_ she going to do? She’s had a good cry, and that’s all well and good, but it isn’t really enough, now is it? And when she wants a good cry, she doesn’t come to this house. No, she goes to Bella and Saffy, or Celia, or Anoushka, because the former two provide sympathetic coos and the latter two provide delicious drinks. Annabelle, Polly, and Kelly are lovely, good people, but they aren’t much for providing tea and sympathy.

“Well,” she says. “I’m not just going to sit and _cry_ about it, now am I?”

She feels Annabelle smile in her hair. “Shakespeare all over again, I tell you.”

******  
Chelsea calls Yvette and apologizes for worrying her, tells her what has happened, and then tells her what she plans to do. Then she falls asleep on Polly, Kelly, and Annabelle’s couch, and doesn’t let herself worry until morning.

In the morning, she goes to Peaches.

“Oh my God, Chelsea!” Peaches says when Chelsea walks into her small, understated office. She turns and looks at the thuggish looking men and women standing around her and waves her hands in the air. “Out! Out! Family emergency.”

If Tara and Tania have changed in spades over the years, Peaches has barely changed at all to Chelsea’s critical eye. Other than dressing in trouser suits now, she still smiles too much, keeps her hair the same length, and is quick with a hug. Now she flings herself at Chelsea and squeezes her tight. Chelsea hugs back, thankful, and then Peaches pulls away and looks at her sharply.

“What in the world were you thinking, running away like that? Gave poor Yvette a coronary. I nearly started a war with the Clerkenwell crime syndicate in my effort to find you.”

Chelsea cringes. Peaches has been working for years to create a sort of truce with the A-Team; she hopes that she didn’t ruin it.

“I hope everything is all right now?” she asks, moving to sit down in the plush chair that she favors whenever she visits Peaches.

“Tanith Adams sorted it all out,” Peaches says shortly, and flings herself into her own chair. “Now. Tell me what you need.”

“I need to find the manuscript and clear Tara, Bernice’s, and my names,” Chelsea says immediately. “I’m not entirely sure how to go about doing it, but I need your help.”

“I would die for you, Chelsea,” Peaches says. “Of course I’ll help you with this.

“Well,” Chelsea begins, tapping her fingers thoughtfully against her lips. “As far as I can tell, there aren’t that many people who have a whassit- a motive. I mean, some jealous academics, but I can’t imagine why they’d _steal_ the manuscript.”

“All right,” Peaches says amiably.

“And then there’s the timing of the thing. Obviously the manuscript was stolen some time last night. But when did they steal my travel flash drive? And erase my draft from my laptop? That had to be sometime during the day. Which I suppose eliminates some people, though God knows I don’t know who.”

“All right,” Peaches says again.

“So that’s opportunity. The means is obvious. That’s motive, means, and opportunity.”

Chelsea pauses and looks at Peaches, feeling helpless. “Which, really, is all _Law and Order: UK_ covers, and I don’t read mysteries, Peaches. I have no idea what to do.”

Peaches smiles. “All right. Here’s what _I’m_ going to do. I’m going to find you a first rate private detective. I happen to know one.”

“A St. Trinian’s girl?” Chelsea interrupts. It’s important. She doesn’t trust anyone else right now.

“Of course,” Peaches says, rolling her eyes. “Meanwhile, I’m going to put out some feelers in the underworld and make sure no one is trying to fence or forge the document.”

“You can do that?”

“Chelsea, I’m the head of the Kaluwitharana Syndicate. Really, I can do whatever I want,” Peaches replies, smiling broadly. Chelsea can’t help but smile back. Peaches’ smile is always good for making people feel better.

“We’re going to fix this,” Peaches reassures her. “We’re going to fix this, and then you’ll revolutionize literary theory, and then we’ll go for tea.”

And really, that’s enough of a goal for anyone.

******  
Peaches sends her to a lovely little café to meet this private detective, and so Chelsea goes. On her way, she calls Yvette and begs for forgiveness. Yvette hangs up on her. She supposes she deserves that. She hasn’t even been home yet.

She’s drinking a low-fat vanilla milkshake when she hears a familiar voice behind her say, “Of all the gin joints in the world.” Chelsea freezes, carefully dabs at her lips with her napkin, and turns to look at Lucy.

It is a myth, albeit one very well supported by reality, that all St. Trinian’s alumni are friends. While most Trinian’s girls can come together at times of need, there are still petty rivalries and simple clashes of personality that ensure that some girls, some women, no matter what, hate each other. Not everyone has a Taylor-and-Andrea story. Lucy and Chelsea have hated each other since day one, and going through not one, but two major school crises together only ensured that their hatred dimmed to a simple indifference. By the time Chelsea and Lucy graduated, they were able to nod politely and have a civil meal together. She’s never kept track of Lucy, not the way she’s kept track of other alum, and she never particularly cared if she saw her again or not.

Yet here she is.

“You couldn’t have come up with a less clichéd greeting?” Chelsea asks in exasperation, getting to her feet. Lucy looks lovely, her auburn hair done in neat curls and pinned back. She’s wearing polka dots, which Chelsea would rather die than wear, but she must admit, they look good on her. She must have opted for contacts, because her glasses are nowhere in sight.

“I could have,” Lucy says, smiling faintly, “But then I wouldn’t get to see the scorn on your face. C’mere.”

Lucy reaches forward and pulls her into a tight hug. She’s not really a hugging person- correction, she and _Lucy_ aren’t really hugging people- but Lucy’s grip brooks no argument, so she squeezes her lightly around the shoulders, pats her once, and then squirms her way free, smoothing her suit coat as she does.

“So you’re the superb private detective?” Chelsea asks incredulously.

“And you’re the distraught brilliant academic?” Lucy shoots back, equally incredulous. Well. All right. That’s fair. She supposes they aren’t seventeen anymore. They can act like adults.

“How did you get into detective work?” Chelsea asks, sitting back down and gesturing for Lucy to join her. She orders a glass of lemonade from the passing server; Lucy asks for water.

“Shakespeare,” Lucy says bluntly. She smiles faintly and squints up at the sky. “I guess it came back to Shakespeare for both of us, really. You study cross-dressers and females using male nom de plumes, I’m given to understand; I loved the mystery and drama of finding the play so much that I figured I might as well make a living out of it.”

“Oh,” Chelsea says, nodding. It makes sense. Lucy had been incredibly excited by the mystery of it all, she remembers. Loved code-breaking (even if it had been her and Bianca who actually broke the code, ha) and breaking and entering, carrying around her ridiculous magnifying glass as if she were Shirley Holmes, girl detective.

“Now, Peaches tells me that a document has been stolen and you’re being accused,” Lucy says, getting down to business. She pulls out a small Steno notebook from her bag (also polka dots, and really? _Really_?) and fixes Chelsea with a firm stare. “Tell me everything, from the beginning.”

For what feels like the fiftieth time, though it’s really only the fourth or the fifth, Chelsea recites the story of what happened. Lucy interrupts occasionally, asking questions, but other than that it’s a dry recitation.

“All right,” Lucy says when she’s done. “From what I can tell, we have quite the suspects list.”

“Really?” Chelsea asks, surprised. “I couldn’t think of anyone who would want it.”

Lucy smiles. “It’s not just who would want it, Chelsea; it’s who doesn’t want _you_ to have it. I have Patricia Rich-”

“Pat? Why her?” Chelsea interrupts, frowning.

“If you release your article, you’re sure to get tenure before her. Also, she didn’t like that you received a second office to work in,” Lucy explains. She continues. “Then there’s Tabitha Kendrick, Ajay Samos, Ralph Denick, and Elaine Millett, who were all inconvenienced by the office switch.”

“You don’t really think they’d steal the manuscript just because they’re tired of sharing an office,” Chelsea scoffs.

Lucy ignores her. “We have Jack Webster, who has been blocking your job progress and may not wish for you to find a reason to succeed; David Faye-”

“David would _never_ -”

“- who, despite being there when Bernice Allowitz found the document, was not selected to examine it and publish about it. Tania Winchester-”

“Lucy!”

“- who said she would do anything to protect her sister. And, of course, you, Tara, and Bernice Allowitz,” Lucy concludes.

Chelsea gapes at her. “You can’t honestly think that the three of us would steal the document. Or Tania! Or David, for that matter! And some of your motives are ridiculously thin, Lucy.”

Lucy sighs and takes a drink from her water glass. “I’ve been a private detective for six years now. I’ve seen people do awful things on far flimsier pretences. And no, frankly, I don’t think a Trinian’s girl was involved. But it’s my job to investigate, Chelsea, not just go off reputations and loyalties.”

Chelsea considers for a moment. She can’t imagine David sabotaging her. Or at least, if he did, he wouldn’t implicate her as a suspect. The same goes for Tania. She wouldn’t make Tara or Chelsea seems suspicious if she was going to steal the document. But she supposes Lucy has a point. Lucy doesn’t know them; she wasn’t there. She’s a fresh pair of eyes.

“What next?” Chelsea asks.

“Get me into the scene of the crime,” Lucy replies.

******  
Easier said than done. In the end, Chelsea places a call to Chloe and requests a distraction. Chloe is nothing if not accommodating.

Chelsea is standing in the stairwell, listening at the door, with Lucy just behind her, when she hears the lift open with a ping and hears Chloe bluster out, shouting about potential donations and the future of her daughters and a desperate desire for a tour _right away_ or none of it is happening. Chelsea hides a smile behind her hand. Chloe is an extremely well-known businesswoman- just last week she made the front page of the Business section in the Times for her takeover of Castanal Limited- and there is no doubt in her mind that people will be falling over themselves to assist her.

She’s right. Within moments, Webster and Lara Farmer, the administrative assistant, are flinging themselves at Chloe, looking surprised and desperate. As soon as they disappear into the lift, Chelsea opens the door and gestures for Lucy to follow her.

“The room is this way,” she says, walking quickly.

“Do you think security guards will be watching it?” Lucy asks, and Chelsea smiles over her shoulder.

“Do you really think Chloe was my only diversion?”

A moment later, a fire alarm sounds across campus, the pitch high enough that Chelsea is sure it can be heard campus-wide. Lucy looks at her, concerned.

“That would be Tania pulling the alarm in the Fogg building,” Chelsea smirks.

“Chelsea, you’re a genius,” Lucy laughs.

“Yes, well, I _do_ have a PhD,” Chelsea says, and then plasters herself to the wall as the two security guards from yesterday go running down the hall, shouting into their radios that they’re on their way. Once she’s sure they’re gone, she takes off again, Lucy right behind her. She stops at the door of the office they’d been working in and tries the doorknob.

“Locked,” she says, scowling.

Lucy nudges her out of the way and pulls out a set of picklocks. Chelsea smiles fondly. She hasn’t seen a set of those for years; they make her nostalgic. Lucy is better with them than many Trinian’s girls, and in under a minute the door is open and they’re standing inside the room. Lucy immediately pulls on a pair of nitrile gloves (neon green, Chelsea notes with distaste) and hands a pair to Chelsea. Hers, at least, are pink.

“Don’t touch anything,” Lucy tells her, despite the gloves. She walks quickly across the room, looking at the open vault. It pains Chelsea to see it.

“Standard electric lock,” Lucy murmurs, running her hands over it. She examines the door carefully before looking inside. “Doesn’t look like it was forced open, either.”

Chelsea frowns. “Does that mean whoever opened it had the combination?”

“Maybe,” Lucy says. “Or a device that would figure it out.”

“They have those?”

“Oh, Chelsea,” Lucy says fondly, glancing up at her. “Whatever happened to your criminal cunning?”

Chelsea scowls at her. “I’m an academic, Lucy. I gave up my criminal ways years ago.”

“Do you know what security is like in the buildings?” Lucy asks, ignoring her. As well she should, Chelsea thinks. She’s probably committed more crimes than Lucy has over the years, given her job.

“Well, we don’t have pressure alarms, hydraulically-operated reinforced steel shutters and random lasers,” Chelsea says. “We do have George. He drives by every thirty minutes or so and checks the doors.”

“Oh dear Lord,” Lucy says faintly.

“The English department doesn’t really have much worth stealing, Lucy.”

“Usually.”

“Usually.”

“Who had the combination for the vault?”

“I did, obviously. Bernice. Tara. Jack- Webster- of course. That’s probably it, though given that the combination was Jack’s anniversary date, it wasn’t exactly foolproof.”

“I weep for modern security,” Lucy mutters, wandering the room and looking it over, touching the windowpanes and door frame with practiced, steady hands. For a moment, Chelsea is reminded of Yvette. Yvette has the steadiest hands Chelsea has ever seen. She really wants to go home to those hands right now. Tonight, she decides. Tonight she’ll go home, plead her case, and hopefully Yvette will soothe her with those fabulously steady hands. For now, she watches Lucy pull out her ridiculous magnifying glass from her ridiculous handbag and look at something on the floor. Then she examines the window again.

“All right,” Lucy finally says, when Chelsea is beginning to get nervous. She can’t hear the fire alarm anymore. “I’m done here.”

They slip out without anyone noticing.

******  
Lucy has other things to do, apparently, so Chelsea goes to have an early tea with Peaches and Chloe. Rather than go to Celia’s teashop, or even Anoushka’s bar, they opt to have tea in Peaches’ office, a spacious, traditionally decorated room located in a high-rise in London. She owns the entire building, but only uses the one office. The rest are rented out to other unfavorable sorts. Peaches claims that she can keep track of other criminals by renting suites out to them. Chelsea’s fairly sure there is an illegal organ trade operation going on down the hall.

“I feel like I’m in an awful Poirot story,” Chelsea complains. “Except no one is dead, and Lucy isn’t a fussy little Belgian man.”

“Fussy, maybe,” Chloe says, sniffing.

“But certainly not Belgian,” Peaches says, smiling. “And please, as if Chelsea isn’t fussy enough for ten Poirots.”

Chelsea would glare at her, but it’s true, so she eats her biscuit instead. “Have you heard anything from your contacts?” she asks instead. Peaches sighs and gestures with her chocolate digestive.

“No. No one selling, no one copying. If it’s out there, it’s either going in a private collection, or the thief is waiting a bit. I’m keeping an eye out, though. If anything moves, I’ll be the first to hear about it,” Peaches replies. She bites into her biscuit and then sets it down on her china plate. She props her arm up on the table and puts her chin in her hand. “Admittedly, I don’t know if my contacts would know a Sand manuscript if it bit them on the nose.”

Chloe purses her lips. “Wouldn’t it be obvious?”

Chelsea begins to tap her fingers on the table, a restless, rhythmic beat that she knows drives Chloe bonkers, but she can’t be bothered to care at the moment. “Well, it’s all in French, is the trouble. And she put her real name on the title page, with her pseudonym abbreviated.”

“That could be an issue for the forgers,” Chloe muses. “Do they all know French?”

Peaches stares down at her chocolate digestive for a moment, and then stands up abruptly. Chelsea blinks rapidly and stares at her as she begins to gather things from her desk and shove them into her handbag. Chloe glances at Chelsea and raises an eyebrow. She shrugs in response.

When Peaches looks up, she smirks at them. “Well, we aren’t just going to sit here and speculate about whether or not they know French, are we? Let’s go find out.”

******  
Taking Peaches’ limousine into the shadier parts of London isn’t exactly an option, and Chelsea drives a Porsche, so that’s out as well. Finally, they turn to John, Peaches’ bodyguard since she was a wee thing, and ask if they can borrow his car, an old banger that’s seen better days.

John snorts. “Miss Peaches, I’m not letting you borrow my car.”

Peaches folds her arms over her chest. “Whyever not?”

“Because I’m not letting you go into those areas without me. I’ll drive.”

As they crawl into the backseat, Peaches rolls her eyes and mutters something about being a mob boss and being a scary motherfucker on her good days. Chelsea bites back the urge to laugh.

Peaches has a list of addresses, which she hands up to John before sitting back and crossing her legs daintily. They sit in silence as John drives them to an area of the East End that Chelsea generally avoids. Chloe is shifting nervously next to her, glancing out the windows and biting compulsively at her fingernails. They’re not in the best area; still, Chelsea remembers how many Trinian’s girls came out of the East End. Including Chloe, she realizes. She grabs Chloe’s hand and squeezes it reassuringly.

John pulls up in front of a grungy looking public house, and Peaches thanks him for the ride before climbing swiftly out the back. None of them look like they belong in the area. Peaches is still wearing her neatly tailored trouser suit, in an intimidating midnight black, and Chloe is wearing Dolce and Gabbana. Chelsea feels underdressed compared to them, having borrowed jeans and a blouse from Annabelle (they aren’t haute couture, but they’re designer at least, which reassures the clothes horse in her), but still, when she sees the clothes of the people in the street, and the strange looks they’re getting, Chelsea knows they don’t belong.

“Come along,” Peaches says, and strides forward confidently. She presses the buzzer, and after a moment, a woman’s voice says “Yeah?”

“Peaches and guests to see you.”

There’s an infinitesimal pause, and then they’re buzzed in. They scale the steps, and Chelsea is reminded of St. Trinian’s for all the graffiti on the walls. Peaches knocks on a door, and they’re allowed inside.

Chelsea is startled to see Emily Toshiba, former Chav/Rude Girl, staring at them with a hard look in her eyes.

“Peaches,” she says. It lacks the warmth that usually comes with greeting her. Peaches smiles brightly, as though to make up for it, and steps forward to give Emily two air kisses. Emily doesn’t move, just accepts it, and then turns to look at her and Chloe. “Chloe. And Chelsea, of course. What are you doing here?”

“We had concerns,” Peaches says, casting about the squalid flat for a place to sit. “About recognizing the manuscript, should you come into contact with it.”

Emily finally unfolds herself and moves a stack of papers off a chair and three canvasses off another, and then goes into what Chelsea presumes must be a kitchen and drags out another chair. She gestures for them to sit down, and leans against a rickety looking table. “Go on, then.”

Chelsea takes over. “You see, the Sand document is in French. And the author used her real name on the title page. Do you know French, Emily?”

“Got no need for French, innit?”

“What if you need to forge a French document?”

Emily scoffs at her. “Oh my days. You think you need to know French to forge it?”

Chelsea remembers Emily. She remembers how often she got beaten up, and how she held herself, always so wrapped in and tense. She remembers how Taylor protected Emily from whatever she could, and how Polly was fond of her, and how Emily looked up to them both with a sort of desperation that Chelsea found sad. Emily always struck her as belonging to the Chav and then Rude Girl Clique more because she lived in the East End and used Chav slang rather than any actual affinity with them.

That Emily is clearly long gone, replaced by a stern, angry woman. Chelsea doesn’t know if she should mourn the old Emily, the one that came to class with black eyes and bloody noses, or to admire the strength that clearly radiates from her now.

“No,” she says, and shakes her head. “No, of course not, I’m sorry.”

Emily looks at her for a moment, and then smiles slightly. “As it happens, I know French. Four years, Miss Maupassant.”

“Then why…”

“Brap. Messin’ with you, ain’t I?” Emily’s small smirk blossoms into a full smile, and then she digs through the pile of papers until she pulls out a Moleskine notebook and flips it open. “Now, tell me what I’m lookin’ for, mate.”

Chelsea spends half an hour detailing what she remembers about the transcript; the smudges and stains, how many pages it was, key phrases that she spent hours looking over and thus memorized, the sort of paper used, the thickness of Sand’s handwriting, and so forth. At some point, Chloe gets up and wanders into Emily’s kitchen, and brings them each a cup of PG Tips. She sets it at Chelsea’s elbow and then resettles herself. Chelsea ignores it all in favor of detailing a rip on page 210, Emily quietly taking notes the entire time.

“Right then,” Emily says when Chelsea finishes. “I got somethin’ to work with, and you ain’t gotta worry ‘bout my French. Fifth in my class, innit?”

Chelsea didn’t actually know that, but she supposes that’s why Peaches went to Emily first. “Thank you,” she says, standing up and holding out her hand politely. Emily stares at it for a moment, and cracks up, pulling her into a hug.

“You safe, blud. Not bad for a posh twat.”

Emily kicks them out, John pulls the car around, and they move onto the next stop.

Some of the forgers are Trinian’s girls, some are not. There is an uncomfortable twenty minutes trying to convince Johnny (no last name, or at least none that he uses) that they aren’t coppers, which Chelsea supposes is the legacy of Nimala Kaluwitharana, who married one, and Punya Kaluwitharana, who married a lawyer. Once the guns are all put away, though, the session is quite productive. Chelsea is surprised to run into Annie Riley, a Posh-Totty who graduated at the end of her first year, living in a mansion and working almost exclusively on art forgery and who is, nonetheless, happy to help.

Chelsea doesn’t feel like she’s doing much to help the investigation, but it’s better than sitting at home and waiting for Webster to call.

******  
Going home is uncomfortable, to say the least.

Chelsea hopes to get home before Yvette, but those hopes are dashed against the rocks when she pulls into their driveway and Yvette’s car is already there. She grips the steering wheel for a moment, considers sleeping in the boot, and then remembers that she doesn’t run from things anymore. Yvette is her wife; they’ll get through this.

When she walks into their house, Yvette is waiting for her, arms crossed and a deep scowl etched into her face.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” she says, and turns to disappear into their living room. Chelsea takes a deep breath, and follows, hoping that Chloe and Peaches will ensure that she has a nice funeral.

Yvette is sitting in her favorite armchair, bouncing her leg up and down. Chelsea sits down on the sofa and smiles cautiously.

“A smile isn’t going to get you out of this, Chelsea,” Yvette says sharply.

“I love you?” Chelsea tries.

“I love you, too. I’m still fucking furious. In what world is it okay to just disappear after a frankly unnerving phone conversation? And then I have Jack Webster calling me, telling me that you’re a fucking suspect and that you’ve been _suspended_ , and you won’t answer my calls, and no one will tell me what’s going on. I shouldn’t have to find things out from _Jack Webster_ or _Kelly Jones_. I should find out from _you_. My _wife_ ,” Yvette says, her voice cold and firm. She never shouts, when she’s angry, Chelsea knows. She just goes icy. Shouting is preferable.

“I’m sorry,” Chelsea says.

“Don’t be sorry; be right,” Yvette snaps. “Now, what’s going on?”

Chelsea shifts in her chair and sighs. “Oh, darling. If only I knew.”

Yvette stares at her for a moment, and there is a perceptible shift in her demeanor. She stands up and comes to sit next to Chelsea, tugging her into her arms. “You suck,” she mutters, and kisses the top of Chelsea’s head. “I’m supposed to be angry at you, not comforting you.”

“You’re too nice to let me suffer,” Chelsea mumbles, closing her eyes. She’s exhausted, and all she wants to do is go to bed with her wife.

“I used to be feared,” Yvette laments. “Then I married you and went soft.”

Yvette shakes her loose and stands up, tugging Chelsea along with her. “Come on, then. Let’s get you to bed.”

“God bless you,” Chelsea says feelingly, and follows Yvette blindly. They have plenty of time to figure this out tomorrow. For now, Yvette is speaking to her again, and that’s enough.

******  
In the morning, Yvette makes her drop scones and tells her to call Tara.

“I’m sure Lucy is doing a bang up job,” Yvette tells her while dribbling syrup all over her plate. “But I know you, and I know Tara. You aren’t content to sit on the sidelines and let others do things for you.”

So she calls her, and then she calls Lucy.

“Any progress?” she asks, cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear while washing the dishes.

“Well, I’ve eliminated Tara and Tania from the suspects list,” Lucy says. Her voice sounds faint, distant, distracted. “As both were in class before the vault was broken into, and thus couldn’t have stolen your notes. And after, Tara went out clubbing for several hours, until the wee small hours of the morning. I have her on surveillance footage. And Tania was in a study session all night.”

“All right,” Chelsea says, scrubbing at a particularly difficult stain. “And the others?”

“Denick, Samos, Kendrick, and Millett are also all off the list. Families or mistresses or neighbors all confirmed their alibis.”

“Mistresses?” Chelsea asks, perking up.

“Not the time for gossip, Chelsea.”

“Right,” she says. She shakes her hands and wipes them on a towel, stepping away from the sink. “I called Tara this morning. She and I want to help.”

There’s silence over the phone, a long, dreadful pause that has Chelsea wondering if she’ll have to start hating Lucy all over again. But then Lucy says, “Yes, all right. Here’s what I need you to do.”

******  
“It’s been years since I’ve done this,” Tara muses, bending down slightly and lacing her fingers together.

“I wish I could say the same,” Tania replies, smirking at her twin and putting her foot in Tara’s hand. Chelsea raises her eyebrows.

“Do I want to know?”

“Bit of harmless fun,” the twins say in unison, and then Tara is boosting Tania up to the first floor window of Dr. Jack Webster’s house. She slides it open and slithers inside, her feet disappearing in a flash.

“We probably shouldn’t do this in the bright sunlight,” Chelsea murmurs, and looks around nervously. Tara shrugs.

“It’s either now or while Dr. Webster is in the house. Somehow, I doubt that would work out well.”

“Oh, pish-posh. You’re forgetting the Posh-Totty charm,” Chelsea says, tossing her hair over her shoulder and smiling.

“Still wouldn’t explain you being in his house, digging through his stuff,” Tania says, opening the front door and letting them in. “Coast is clear, let’s go.”

When Lucy had told her that she needed people to systematically burgle the remaining suspect’s houses, Chelsea wasn’t entirely sure she was the right one for the job. After all, her role in various schemes and heists over the years was generally that of distraction and misdirection, never actual action. Taylor and Andrea, they are the burglars. And Tania and Tara, of course, used to live for any sort of adventure they could get their hands on. Kelly and Annabelle would dive in feet first. Chelsea smiles and laughs and kisses, and her role is done.

Still, someone has taken her manuscript. It’s a good motivator.

Tara hands her a pair of gloves and they put them on, sliding little booties on next. “I feel like a crime scene investigator,” Chelsea mumbles, sneering at the bright blue cloth over her designer shoes.

“Start looking,” Tania orders, and vanishes, presumably somewhere into the house.

Chelsea runs up the stairs and begins in Webster’s bedroom. If he’s anything like her, he does at least a portion of his work in bed. She’s pleased to see her guess was correct; there are books and papers piled everywhere. She wonders briefly how Enid, Jack’s wife, stands the mess, but then recalls that her own wife has to wade through her papers each week, and figures it’s a labor of love.

Jack appears to be working on yet another analysis of _The Sun Also Rises_ , and she’s tempted to groan in disgust, but she puts aside the urge and leaves the papers as they are, crossing the room to his dresser and yanking it open, riffling quickly through the laundry. She checks for false drawers, but finds nothing. She checks the closet next, but other than a bunch of records in a box, she doesn’t find anything. Knowing the ingenuity of a good thief, she checks under the seat cushions, and then under the seats themselves, feeling carefully for any odd protrusions. She digs under the bed, looks at the mattress carefully for openings or recently fixed rips, taps along the headboard, and still comes up empty. The bedroom is clear.

She tries the bathroom, but only discovers that Jack dyes his hair (not surprising) and that Enid has a nasty skin rash that she’s treating with steroid cream. She muffles a scream of disgust as she sticks her hand in the toilet and feels around, and then again when she finds mold in their shower. She gives herself a moment to shriek silently and jump around the bathroom in horror before calming herself and moving on to the next room.

Jack and Enid Webster have their own sad story; their son died in an car accident when he was fifteen. His bedroom, Chelsea discovers, is in pristine condition. It still has posters on the walls of scantily clad women, and his bookshelf hides an impressive porn collection that rivals Chelsea’s. It’s a tragic memorial, and she doesn’t feel right digging around in the room of a son over ten years dead now. But she doesn’t have a choice.

She’s more careful with the son’s room, lifting things carefully, eyes looking instead of hands touching where she can. He was a Star Wars fan, she notes, staring at the collectible action figures on his nightstand. He seemed to be fond of the original trilogy over the prequels (Harriet once told her that that was obvious), and liked Han Solo a great deal, if Chelsea is recognizing the characters correctly. He had a strong penchant for Maths, and loved numbers theory. He kept pictures of his family on his window frame, smiling photos of his grandparents, his parents, his entire family with him in the middle.

She leaves the room feeling guilty, as though she’d desecrated a sacred site. She doesn’t even know what his name was.

She walks downstairs and finds Tara in front of a computer, talking quickly on the phone to someone.

“All right, I have it all set up, what next?” Tara asks. She glances up when Chelsea approaches. “Polly,” she says simply, and Chelsea nods. They’re hacking the computer, apparently.

She finds Tania in the kitchen, efficiently digging through the cutlery drawers. “Anything?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Tania responds, holding a spatula in her hand. “You?”

“I just dug through their dead son’s room. I feel icky.”

Tania gives her a sympathetic look. “I’m sure Lucy would tell you it was necessary.”

“Then Lucy can do it next time,” Chelsea responds testily, and opens the pantry to open boxes of cereal and look for her special prize inside.

She’s standing on a chair, opening cupboards above their heads, when Tara comes in and announces, “Okay, Polly walked me through putting a key-logging virus on Dr. Webster’s computer. She’ll be able to access anything he does remotely.”

That’s the moment, of course, that they hear a car door slam outside.

Chelsea looks up in horror while Tania runs to the window, peering outside. She looks back, her eyes wide. “He’s home, with his wife.”

“What?” Tara hisses. “He’s supposed to be at the University all day!”

“Change of plans,” Tania says. “We need to hide.”

Chelsea hops down from the chair and pushes it back where it was. A few things are out of place, but she’s hoping that Jack’s obliviousness will continue on and no one will notice. “Upstairs,” she says shortly. They run.

Chelsea is just opening the door to Jack and Enid’s son’s room when the door downstairs opens. She shoves Tania and Tara in ahead of her and then slides in, shutting the door silently behind her. She leans back against it and takes a breath.

“Bloody hell,” she mutters.

“Don’t panic,” Tara says, looking around the room desperately. “We’ll figure a way out.”

“No one is panicking,” Tania hisses, and walks over to the window, opening it carefully and poking her head out. “We could go out the window.”

Chelsea looks at her heels, still covered in blue booties, and grimaces. “All right, then. That’s the plan.”

“Let’s go,” Tara says, and moves the pictures of family to the side. Chelsea lets out a long breath. They don’t belong here. They don’t belong here just as much as she, Chloe, and Peaches didn’t belong in the East End at Emily Toshiba’s flat.

She and Tania lower Tara as far as they can, and then they let her go. She hits the ground and rolls, already up and running before she’s stopped moving. Tania goes next, and then it’s Chelsea’s turn. She looks at the distance to the ground in momentary despair, and takes inhales deeply.

“You’re Chelsea Parker, PhD, St. Trinian’s girl and Posh-Totty,” she says quietly. “You can do this.”

She swings a leg up over the sill and begins to slither out. She winces as her heel catches on the brick and kicks her shoes off, hoping that Tania or Tara will get them out of her way. She’s hanging half in, half out, when she realizes suddenly that the photos on the windowsill will give their presence away. Shifting uncomfortably, she reaches a hand back in and snags the photos, lining them back up as best as she can. The window being open will also give them away, she knows, but there’s nothing doing. She can’t fix that. So she lets herself fall.

She hits the ground, hard, and feels the breath get knocked out of her. Then Tara and Tania are grabbing her and dragging her along, breath or no breath.

“Go, go, go,” Tara says, and Chelsea manages to get her feet underneath her and run.

******  
“That was a bust,” Chelsea says, putting an icepack on her knee and glaring at Lucy.

Lucy rolls her eyes. “I didn’t say you’d find it right away. I needed you to look for me and see if you found anything suspicious.”

“He eats sardines,” Tania says, grimacing as Tara hands her an icepack for the ankle she twisted while falling.

“That’s certainly suspicious,” Tara says, nodding.

“I’m talking about things like… underworld contacts in his email, or an unusual amount of George Sand research on his bookshelves, or strange marks in the carpet, as though the furniture had been moved recently,” Lucy says.

“None of that, no,” Chelsea says grimly.

They’re sitting in Lucy’s living room, debriefing her on the disaster that was their housebreaking attempt. Her husband is bustling about the kitchen, making lunch for them all, which Chelsea can’t help but think is incredibly kind. He doesn’t even know them. Until twenty minutes ago, Chelsea didn’t even know he existed. His name is Barry, apparently.

“All right,” Lucy says, and smiles up at Barry as he hands them plates of sandwiches. “He’s not off the suspect list yet, but he probably isn’t our guy.”

“And Peaches hasn’t called me with information from the forgers yet, so I’m assuming no one is going down that path,” Chelsea adds.

“Who is your main forger contact?” Lucy asks, pulling out her notes and flipping through them.

“Emily Toshiba.”

Lucy whistles. “She’s good. One of the best. She’d probably get the manuscript first, if someone was passing it on.”

Barry sits down next to Lucy and takes a bite out of her sandwich before handing it back. “Sounds like a hard case.”

“It’s just strange,” Lucy says, frowning and staring at her notes. “Chelsea, Tara, and Bernice are framed for stealing a valuable manuscript, but there is no movement. The safe wasn’t forced open. No other fingerprints. None of it makes sense. Why steal a manuscript and frame the academics studying it?”

None of them have an answer.

******  
When she gets home, Kelly is sitting with Yvette, tossing back Scotch and laughing. Chelsea lifts her eyebrows as high as she can and sets her keys in the bowl by the door.

“Of course,” Kelly is saying, “what Chelsea didn’t realize was that the First Years had put jelly mix in the pool. So she went diving in and, much to my eternal delight, was immediately coated in blue jelly.”

Chelsea grimaces. The school field trip to Venice had been interesting, in more ways than one. She still isn’t sure why the hotel didn’t kick them out after that stunt.

“Oh, she must have gone ballistic,” Yvette laughs.

“If by ballistic you mean screaming and swearing and showering for seven hours afterwards, yes,” Kelly says, and lights a cigarette, taking a long drag on it before looking over to where Chelsea is standing in the doorway. “Cheers, love.”

Yvette looks over and grins. “Poor baby. I imagine getting the blue out of your hair took forever.”

“Two weeks,” Chelsea admits, walking over and sitting next to Yvette. She presses a chaste kiss on her cheek, and looks at Kelly. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Finding the manuscript,” Kelly replies simply. “I’m here to help.”

“We have plenty of help,” Chelsea replies. Yvette smacks her on the arm.

“Be polite.”

“I am. I’m just saying, I have Lucy, and Tara and Tania. And Emily Toshiba is watching the underworld and will contact Peaches if someone tries to fence or forge the manuscript. Chloe’s helping as well.”

“Yes,” Kelly drawls carelessly, swirling her Scotch. “But none of them were spies. None of them know how to interrogate someone.”

Chelsea blinks. She isn’t quite sure what to make of that. Kelly rises and grins.

“Day isn’t over yet, dear.”

******  
Patricia Rich is sitting tied to a chair, looking furious.

“Oh,” says Chelsea, staring through the window at her colleague. It’s been a few years since she’s been involved in a kidnapping, at least two. Kidnapping was always more of a Chav technique, occasionally an Emo one. Posh-Totties prefer a different approach, as a whole. Still, all St. Trinian’s girls have at least a basic knowledge of how to kidnap people.

“We considered taking Faye, but we thought we’d let you decide how to handle him,” Andrea says earnestly. She isn’t wearing any makeup at the moment, which throws Chelsea. Even though it’s been ten years since Andrea graduated, she still carefully applies her Emo makeup every morning, including the stylized “A” at the corner of her eye.

“Oh,” says Chelsea again, and then squints at Patricia. She appears to be rubbing the ropes around her ankles against the chair legs. Clever, but it won’t be enough. She knows all of Taylor and Andrea’s ropes are reinforced.

“Oi, let’s get this interrogation started, yeah?” says Taylor, stepping out of her office holding a whip.

“Don’t you think the whip is a little much?” Chelsea asks, turning to face her.

Taylor shrugs. “I ain’t gonna hit her with it. Just scare her a little.”

Chelsea looks at Kelly in despair. Kelly rolls her eyes. “Taylor, let me take lead. I don’t think we’ll need the whip.”

Taylor scowls and tosses it onto the pink sofa in the common area. “All right, we’ll do it your way.”

“Stay here, Chelsea,” says Kelly, and opens the door into the concrete garage. Andrea and Taylor follow her, leaving Chelsea to lean against the window and watch.

She can hear everything through the intercoms that were installed a few years ago. Kelly’s heels are clicking ominously on the ground as she walks slowly around Patricia. Patricia is blindfolded, which she imagines must heighten the effect. Kelly looks over at Taylor, who has positioned herself behind Pat, and nods. Taylor grabs Patricia by the hair and tugs her neck back.

“Dr. Rich,” purrs Kelly, circling around her. “A pleasure to finally meet you.”

“What do you want?” Patricia snaps. “I’m a professor- I don’t have much money.”

Kelly’s laugh is slow and rich, very unlike her usual light-hearted and bright chuckle. “Oh, Professor, I am not here for your money.”

“Well, I doubt you want my china teapot collection.”

Kelly glances at Chelsea through the window and grins. Patricia is _hilarious_ as a kidnap victim. Most of the people Andrea and Taylor take whimper and simper and beg for their lives. Patricia looks like she would take the chair to their heads, if only she could get loose.

“I think you know what I want,” Kelly says, leaning close to hiss it in her ear.

“I really don’t,” Patricia says flatly.

“Oh?”

“You can take my brother. He’s a pain in the arse; no one would mind.”

“Not your brother, Dr. Rich.”

“Well, you’re fucked. Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Andrea walks forward suddenly and yanks the ropes around Patricia’s wrists tighter. Patricia yelps, and Chelsea leans forward, peering at the ties. She still has circulation. They’re being careful; good.

“The manuscript, Rich,” Andrea growls. She sounds cruel, hard. Like all of her homicidal fantasies are rushing to the surface, and only the others presence is stopping her from hurting Pat. Chelsea knows better, of course, but Patricia doesn’t.

“Manuscript?” Patricia asks, sounding genuinely confused. Chelsea presses herself to the glass, trying to get a read on her body language, but she’s too far away. Without thinking about it, she chucks off her shoes so she’s standing in stockings and glides as silently as possible through the door. Taylor and Andrea are expert kidnappers, it’s true, but they never interrogate people. They never have to determine truth by the set of someone’s shoulders. Kelly might be able to do it, after her years as an agent, but Chelsea was a Posh-Totty. The body is her art form.

Patricia’s eyes are hidden behind a blindfold, but that doesn’t matter. Chelsea walks softly around her, studying how her shoulders are sitting, how her legs are positioned, where her chin is angled. Kelly is watching Chelsea. Chelsea waves at her to continue.

“The manuscript, Professor. You know which one I’m talking about.”

Patricia tilts her head to the side- no change in tension, so Chelsea decides that she’s genuinely confused.

“My book manuscript? You want to know about my research? Really?”

Taylor shoves her head forward, letting go of her hair. Patricia immediately twists, trying to figure out where her captors are, Chelsea presumes.

Kelly laughs again, that musical laugh that is more frightening than friendly. Chelsea is grateful she didn’t know her during her spy years. “The Sand manuscript, Rich.”

“Are you kidding me?” Patricia asks incredulously, twisting in her seat again. She’s still trying to free herself, Chelsea notes. Good for her. In another lifetime, she probably would have been a St. Trinian’s girl, with all that ferocity bubbling under the surface. “All anyone can talk about is that ridiculous Sand manuscript. Why doesn’t anyone care about anything else?”

“It’s worth a great deal of money, Dr. Rich,” Andrea says. “Is it any wonder?”

Patricia scoffs. “It is to me. Fucking George Sand. My research is important, too!”

She doesn’t like Updike, but Chelsea supposes that studying him is important to the field of postmodernist literature. Chelsea tilts her head. She’s actually loosened up a bit, and is radiating anger more than tension now. Chelsea waves a hand at Kelly and then uses BSL to tell her what she wants to say. Kelly nods.

“Not as important as this, Rich. Where’s the manuscript?”

Patricia’s indignation is immediate. “My research isn’t as important? How dare you! Do you even know what I study?”

Chelsea signs again, and Kelly says, “It doesn’t matter. The manuscript.”

“ _It doesn’t matter_?” Patricia splutters. “I can’t- that’s so- it has _nothing to do with my research_. I don’t know where it is, nor do I want to.”

She’s telling the truth. Chelsea nods at Kelly and walks out. They’ll handle getting her home. She’s learned what she needs.

Patricia Rich didn’t steal the manuscript.

******  
Chelsea calls Lucy on her way home and lets her know that Patricia didn’t do it.

“Are you sure?” asks Lucy.

“Please,” laughs Chelsea. “I know people.”

Lucy takes this as it is. “All right, so that rules out Rich and the other academics. I’m still investigating Webster and Faye.”

“You’re looking at David? I thought I told you he wouldn’t do it.”

“Who’s the detective?”

“Who’s the academic?”

“Who’s the Geek?”

Chelsea concedes the point. If she doesn’t, they’ll argue forever, and she’s learned after years of marriage that sometimes, it’s best to just let it go. “I’ll look at David,” Chelsea says. “You focus on Jack.”

She imagines that Lucy is nodding over the phone as she says, “Very well. Do you have a plan?”

Chelsea considers for a moment. Kidnapping and interrogation is an Emo and Chav technique. Breaking into houses is something more along the lines of First Years. Reaching out to contacts is actually more Geekish than anything, though Peaches prides herself on being able to reach anyone in the criminal underworld at any time. Examining the scene of the crime for clues is similarly Geeky. Bemoaning her situation was Emo. Walking away was Eco. It seems like the one thing she hasn’t done is be herself. She needs to do it the Posh-Totty way.

“I’m going to take him out for a drink,” she decides, and hangs up before she can hear Lucy’s response.

******  
“This is a nice bar,” David says, looking around. “Why haven’t we been here before?”

Chelsea raises an eyebrow at Anoushka, who turns away to hide her smile. The real answer, of course, is that Anoushka’s bar is popular among spies and criminals, and Chelsea prefers to keep her less criminally inclined friends away from it. What she tells David, however, is “Oh, I just found it a few days ago.”

St. Trinian’s girls all have their own ways of approaching a conflict. Chavs or Rude Girls are blunt, straightforward, and occasionally violent. Emos immerse themselves in their emotions, but will eventually cut to the chase, much like Rude Girls (there is a reason that the Emo/Rude Girl conflict is nearly a century old). “She who angers you, conquers you,” is not just something that Celia spouts when high; it is something that most Ecos genuinely believe. When faced with a challenge, they meditate on how best to handle it, and usually end up walking away. Geeks favor subtlety and back doors.

Though many St. Trinian’s women would say that Posh-Totties are similarly blunt, what with the sex appeal, Chelsea has always argued that they are just as subtle as the Geeks, just in different ways. (Hence the less obvious, less volatile conflict between the Geeks and Posh-Totties, in Chelsea’s opinion; the wars have always been between the Cliques that are similar to one another.) But while Geeks subtly take the back door, through computers or contacts or research, Posh-Totties take the front, talking to people and getting them to confess their secrets without realizing it. The trick is to use the obvious as a distraction from one’s true motives. They’re manipulators, in the end.

So she’s getting David drunk. Straightforward, in its own way, but also subtle. She’s always preferred Posh-Totty methods.

David is drinking a St. Trinian’s original, something the First Years put together. Chelsea is drinking carbonated water and acting slightly tipsy. Getting pissed is not the goal; getting information is.

“Thank you for coming out with me; I’m just so upset about this whole manuscript business,” she sighs, looking down at her drink and acting more despondent than she actually feels. Real!Chelsea is fixing the problem; Despondent!Chelsea is sitting at home, eating bon-bons and watching crap telly. And so, she acts like it.

“Of course, Chelsea,” David says, reaching out and patting her hand. “You know I’m here for you.”

She takes a sip of her drink, licks her lips, and says, “I just can’t understand who would take it.”

“Some jealous academic, no doubt,” David says. He’s drinking tequila, which Chelsea has never really had a taste for. She prefers whiskey, or something that seems classy, like brandy.

“I never asked you,” Chelsea says, grateful for the segue. “Were you upset that Bernice chose me to study the manuscript, when you were there when she found it?”

David stares at her for a minute, and then squints. He’s pretty far gone- they’ve been there for an hour- but he’s David, and she’s never doubted his intelligence. He continues squinting for a moment, and then visibly relaxes, shrugging. “A bit. At first. It’s hard, to be part of finding this paradigm-altering manuscript, and knowing that you won’t get to study it. But I got over it.”

“Why?” Chelsea asks.

David finishes his glass and signals for Anoushka to come back over. She comes, swaying her hips and, in Chelsea’s practiced eye, looking dangerous. Most people wouldn’t see it. They’d just see sexuality in three-inch heels.

“Yes?” Anoushka asks, her accent a pleasurable ripple down Chelsea’s spine.

“Can we get some shots of vodka, please?” David asks politely.

“Certainly,” Anoushka says, baring her teeth. It almost looks like a smile. Almost.

She pours out four vodka shots, performing a slight sleight of hand to give Chelsea pure water while David gets St. Trinian’s best vodka- that is, the sort that doesn’t kill- and then ambles away, tossing Chelsea a smirk over her shoulder.

“Why?” Chelsea repeats.

David tosses back a shot, grimacing, and then shrugs, “I don’t study French female writers. Nor do I study cross-dressing, male pseudonym using authors. In every single way, this manuscript belonged to you first. I couldn’t begrudge you that.”

She wants to believe him. David hasn’t been her friend for very long, as compared to her other friendships, but he’s so absolutely genuine that she feels like she’s known him since she was eleven. He’s snarky and sarcastic, and he’s sweet and gentle and loyal. He’s the perfect colleague. He’s an excellent friend. But in a year of knowing him, she’s also come to know that he’s a superb liar. He can look at their department chair and cheerfully babble about how much he admires the man’s research, and twenty minutes later be sitting in her office, griping about how Webster is the most unoriginal academic that the University has ever produced.

God, though. How she wants to believe him.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” she says, trying to press him.

David tosses back his second shot, and then looks at her, serious in his drunkenness. “Chelsea. Someday, I am going to make my own discovery. Brecht was prolific- there is surely something out there that hasn’t been found yet. And while I love you, darling, I must say that finding a new Brecht will trump finding a new Sand.”

He smiles at her, and Chelsea grins back. She can’t help it. “You think?”

“Dr. Parker, people still perform Brecht on a regular basis. Most people can’t even name a book by Sand. She’s just a cross-dresser; Brecht is a genius.”

He sounds apologetic while saying it, but it makes Chelsea grin harder. Everything she’s seeing, everything he’s saying, indicates that while there might be some honest professional jealousy, he didn’t steal her manuscript. He’s off the suspect list, in her head.

Which means that now she can attack his arguments without worrying about anything else.

“Oh, David,” she says, beaming. “Let me tell you how wrong you are.”

******  
When she wakes up in the morning, it’s to a horrendous hangover and her mobile ringing.

She groans, curses herself for switching to alcohol, and reaches blindly for her phone. Her hand connects with her notebook, which she’d been writing in before she went to sleep last night, and it falls to the floor, hitting hard enough that she winces. Then she feels her phone, presses the answer button with her eyes closed, and brings the phone to her ear.

“Chelsea Parker speaking,” she groans.

“You sound like death,” Chloe says, sounding far too amused. Chelsea moans and rolls over, burying her face in her pillow.

“I feel like death.”

“Reconnaissance mission?”

“Next time I try one of those, please remind me that I’m not seventeen anymore. Hangovers are atrocious.”

“Oh, dearest,” Chloe says, laughing. “I think it’s just you. I still don’t get hangovers, and I’m a year older than you.”

Chelsea scowls and props herself up on her elbows, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. On Yvette’s side of the bed, there is a bottle of pain pills and a glass of water. She smiles. Her wife is too good to her. She reaches out and snags them from the nightstand.

“Aren’t you lucky,” she says drolly. She pulls out two pills and swallows them dry. “What are you calling about?”

“Just checking in,” Chloe replies. Chelsea can vaguely hear the sound of shuffling papers, and imagines that she’s at her office. “Lucy refuses to tell me anything about the investigation, something about client confidentiality, which is frankly ridiculous- for God’s sake, we’re best friends!- and Yvette told me you were sleeping off a drunken night on the town, but I just couldn’t resist calling you, and Peaches has no news either, and I feel so desperately out of the loop, and you know how that makes me feel.”

Chelsea smiles slightly. Chloe, more than any of them, is prone to long, rambling run-on sentences.

“David didn’t do it,” she says.

Chloe snorts. “Of course he didn’t. I could have told you that.”

“Lucy wanted proof.”

“Of course she did; she’s a Geek.”

Chelsea rolls over once more onto her back, draping an arm over her eyes. “Patricia didn’t do it either- Patricia Rich, one of my colleagues- and I can’t imagine Webster doing it. Lucy says she’s cleared the four people who were forced to share an office. And Tania and Tara. Bernice is in charge of the manuscript, and doesn’t need to steal it. And I certainly didn’t. This means that of our original suspects list, everyone is scratched off. Which means we missed something.”

Chloe makes a contemplative sound. “And you’re certain it couldn’t have been someone completely unrelated? Like, a janitor or something?”

“No. They wouldn’t have known what was in the vault.”

“All right, so you’ve cleared everyone based on either evidence or gut feeling,” Chloe muses. “What about motive? What is everyone’s motive?”

“God help me, Chloe, I don’t know,” Chelsea groans. “It doesn’t make sense for any of them to steal the Sand document.”

There’s a long pause over the phone. Then, slowly, Chloe says, “Maybe that’s the point.”

“What?” Chelsea asks.

“Maybe the point is that that for whomever stole it, it doesn’t make sense that they did. At least, logically.”

Chelsea closes her eyes, thinking over the list of people in her head. She runs through it, examining possible motives, and then her eyes snap open. She sits up quickly, upsetting her stomach slightly, and says, “I know who did it.”

******  
In retrospect, Chelsea will find it completely obvious. But then, she never considered herself a detective. Even during the Shakespeare Scandal, she didn’t really involve herself with the detective work. She deciphered a few riddles, a few codes, and followed her gut when everyone else was inclined to give up, but it was Lucy and Annabelle who really drove the hunt.

Chelsea Parker, PhD, is a brilliant woman, and she knows it. What sets her apart from other brilliant people, though, in her opinion, is her gift of intuition. Sometimes, she just _knows_.

Which is why she’s knocking on Bernice’s hotel room door and wishing to God that she didn’t. That Lucy had solved this, and she was at home nursing her hangover and having happy weekend sex with her wife.

“Parker,” Bernice says, opening the door and peering at her suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”

Chelsea smiles at her sadly. “You just couldn’t stand my stealing your thunder, could you?”

Bernice gives her a strange look. “What?”

Chelsea shoulders past Bernice and takes in her hotel room at a glance. Her suitcase is on the bed, halfway packed. Yes, she thinks. Yes, this makes sense. It all makes so much sense.

“When you realized what I was writing my article on, when it became apparent I would be done before you, when you saw that I would publish right as you announced… you just couldn’t deal with it, could you?”

Bernice shuts the door and looks at Chelsea. Chelsea stares back, undaunted. Bernice was her mentor. She guided her through her thesis. She has always recognized Bernice’s genius, but since she became a professor, she’s thought of them as friends as well. It’s tearing her apart to realize that she was alone in that belief.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Parker,” Bernice snaps. Her shoulders are tense, and she’s looking up and to the left. Avoiding eye contact. God, she should have learned how to lie at some point.

“You stole the manuscript,” Chelsea says gently.

Bernice laughs, quick and sharp and entirely too brittle. “Why would I steal it? It was remaining in my possession. I would just be stealing it from myself.”

Chelsea goes and sits down on the bed, glancing at the clothes in Bernice’s suitcase. Ugly suits, all. She’s always tried to offer Bernice fashion advice, but Bernice’s look of contempt stopped her each time. “But you also stole my documents. My notes. You destroyed them. You weren’t stealing the manuscript, really. You were just stopping me from being able to publish right away. From taking the spotlight off of you.”

Most academics, Chelsea knows, are egomaniacs. They think the world of themselves and their research. They are full of pride and hubris, and she knows they have to be, in order to withstand the constant attacks and criticism, in order to promote their theories over others, in order to stand firm in the face of doubt. But this, she thinks, is ridiculous. This is taking it too far.

Bernice stares at her. “You’re delusional.”

“Am I?” Chelsea says idly, picking at the bedspread. “So you’re saying that you _didn’t_ realize that my article would focus all the attention on Sand’s sexuality and life story, and thus on me and my scholarship, instead of focusing on you and your amazing discovery? That didn’t bother you?”

“No,” Bernice insists. “I’d’ve been proud of you.”

“I’m sure,” Chelsea replies. “Proud and bitterly jealous as you faded to relative obscurity. No one would have paid any attention to you. It would have been all about me.”

“No. No, they would have paid attention to me. I found the damn thing, Parker.”

“No one cares about who found it. They care about what it _means_. And your proto-feminism isn’t as exciting as my queer theory.”

“Fuck you,” Bernice says calmly. “I think you should go.”

“No,” Chelsea replies, just as calmly. “Not until you explain it all to me.”

Chelsea has no doubt in her mind that Bernice stole the manuscript. In part because her intuition knows it, thanks to a push from Chloe. But also in part because Lucy called her on her way over, spluttering, “It was Allowitz. All evidence points to her.”

Between a Posh-Totty’s instinct and a Geek’s research, there is no better proof in the world.

She sees the moment that Bernice breaks. There’s a flicker in her posture, in her eyes, and then her shoulders slump and her back straightens. Her chin lifts and her eyes narrow, and then Bernice is spitting, “The student isn’t supposed to pass the teacher.”

“Rubbish,” Chelsea says, flicking her hand dismissively. “That’s the sign of a good teacher.”

“You already discovered Shakespeare. You don’t deserve Sand.”

“Similarly rubbish. An academic is never done discovering.”

“It was supposed to be my moment!” Bernice yells. “I was supposed to stand proud as people interviewed me. And then you wrote your damn article, and I knew, I _knew_ that no one would care what I did anymore. It would be all about Chelsea Parker.”

Chelsea glares at her. “You shouldn’t have stolen it.”

“I am seventy-six, Parker. I’m retiring. This was my _last chance_ , and you took it away from me. What was I supposed to do?”

“Talk to me!” Chelsea yells. “Ask me to delay my article!”

Bernice snorts in derision. “Because that’s realistic.”

Chelsea stands up and stalks over to her, too furious now to remain sitting. “After you took the manuscript, you looked at Tara and me and cast aspersions upon our St. Trinian’s background. You said that Trinian’s women are thieves and liars. And you’ve _always_ thought that.

“But Bernice, do you know what we’re really about? _Friendship_. And _loyalty_. If you had asked, I would have delayed. It wouldn’t have hurt me. No one would have gotten there faster than me. You could have had your time in the spotlight, and I would have still had mine.”

The thing is, most academics are egomanics. But Chelsea is not most academics. She’s a PhD in Literature, yes, but she’s a Posh-Totty. She’s a St. Trinian’s graduate. She always has been; she always will be.

Those things shape a person.

Chelsea runs a hand through her hair, suddenly sad. She has always admired Bernice. Loved her, even, for her passion and integrity. It’s horrible to discover that only one of those is true.

“You should have talked to me,” Chelsea finishes sadly. “I would have helped you. I would have protected your legacy.”

Bernice stares at her, and then slowly walks over to the armchair in her room and sits down slowly, setting her cane against the wall. “You were just moving so fast. And all I could think was, I am nothing. I will always be nothing. No one will care about me anymore.”

Chelsea leans back against the wall and shuts her eyes briefly. “I always cared about you.”

They let the silence linger until Lucy barges into the room, police right behind her.

******  
They gather, all of them, at Anoushka’s bar. Lucy, Peaches, Chloe, Saffy, Bella, Tara, Tania, Emily, Andrea, Taylor, Kelly, Polly, and Annabelle. And of course, Chelsea and Yvette. Anoushka’s closed down her establishment for the evening, opened it all up to them, giving Chelsea a sympathetic kiss and free drinks all around.

Lucy is the toast of the crowd, explaining how she figured out through clues, evidence, and lack thereof, that Bernice was the culprit.

“It just didn’t make sense,” Lucy says, beaming, “that everything was deleted, but there was no evidence of hacking. So clearly it had to be someone that knew Chelsea’s various passwords.”

Kelly, Annabelle, and Polly nod in unison. Polly because she’s a hacker herself, Chelsea imagines, and Kelly and Annabelle because they spent years stealing information and spying on people. Taylor and Andrea are curled up together in a booth, watching in fascination. Emily is staring at Lucy in undisguised admiration. Peaches and Chloe are simply listening.

Chelsea tucks her head on Yvette’s shoulder and holds on.

“Then I was going through the logs and lines of code,” Lucy continues, “And found that the only IP address that had accessed Chelsea’s on-line accounts was the same as her work computer. Which meant that the thief had used Chelsea’s computer to delete everything.”

“And of course,” Polly says dryly, raising an eyebrow at Chelsea, “She had all of her passwords saved on her computer.”

“Yes,” Lucy says, and then looks at Chelsea. “You might want to stop having your computer remember your passwords, by the way. Very dangerous. Not secure at all.”

Taylor laughs. “Best way to get blackmail material, though.”

“Anyway, that meant it had to be someone who had access to Chelsea’s office. And knew the password to her computer.”

“And that was three people,” Peaches muses. “Chelsea, Tara, and Bernice.”

“Right,” Lucy says. “Which also helps explain why there were no additional fingerprints on the vault. But Tara had an alibi. Chelsea hired me through you. Which could have been a clever misdirect, but I doubt that Chelsea thinks like that.”

Chelsea thinks there is an insult in there, but she’s too tired to get angry. She closes her eyes, and feels Yvette squeeze her hand.

“Which left Bernice. Who was the only one that fit with all the evidence. Access to the building. Access to the vault. Access to Chelsea’s office. Access, even, to Chelsea’s house to steal the flash drive and laptop.”

Yvette sighs. “That poor woman. I can’t imagine being that desperate to preserve my legacy.”

Chloe shrugs. “I can understand it. Not wanting to be ignored. Not wanting to be forgotten.”

“Dumb, though, innit?” Emily says, frowning. “Only legacy she’s got now is her jail sentence, yeah?”

Chelsea thinks about that. About spending your entire life devoted to your work, and watching it all turn to ashes. She opens her eyes and looks at Tara, who has remained quiet the entire time, simply sitting and drinking her martini, and wonders. Wonders if she’ll someday turn on Tara in a desperate bid to protect herself. Thinks about her years as Bernice’s protégée. And then she knows what she wants to do.

“I’m not going to destroy her,” Chelsea says suddenly.

Everyone looks at her in confusion. “What do you mean?” asks Yvette, glancing at her.

“She wanted to destroy me because she was scared I would destroy her. I’m not going to be her. And I’m not going to do what she thought I would do all along. I’m better than that. _We’re_ better than that.”

Chelsea looks across the table at Tara. Tara is the only other one who has a real stake in this. She’s going to leave the decision up to her.

Tara meets her eyes and stares at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nods and smiles. “To err is human. Let’s be better than that.”

******  
It takes some doing, but Chelsea manages, through Posh-Totty and St. Trinian’s networks, to make the charges against Bernice vanish. Lucy doesn’t understand why she insists upon it, but she helps, conveniently allowing evidence to disappear, refusing to testify. Bernice goes free.

Chelsea meets her outside the prison, waiting patiently in her car. Bernice eyes her warily, but climbs, carefully, into the passenger’s seat.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Chelsea says immediately, keeping her eyes on the road as she pulls into traffic. “When you release the manuscript, I will wait one month before I publish my article. And I will credit you constantly for the discovery.”

Bernice swallows. “That’s generous. Considering.”

“You’re a thief and a liar, Bernice,” Chelsea says sharply. Bernice winces, and Chelsea nods once before continuing. “And as you pointed out, so am I. I believe in honor among thieves. All St. Trinian’s women do, in the end.”

“I’m sorry,” Bernice says, after a long moment of silence in which Chelsea had been putting together shopping list. She needs a new dress after the week she’s had. “I know it’s not enough, but I am.”

Chelsea sighs and pulls the car over. She twists in her seat to look at Bernice. The woman looks older, wearier. It breaks her heart, a little. “You nearly got me fired, Bernice.”

“I know.”

“You nearly ruined Tara’s academic career.”

“I know.”

“All because of your ego.”

“I know.” Bernice is nearly whispering now, looking ashamed. Chelsea runs a hand over her eyes.

“You’re my friend. You were my mentor, my advisor, everything that I wanted to be when I grew up. There’s only one other teacher that ever had that effect on me. It hurts that you would throw that all away.”

Chelsea pauses, and then shakes her head. “I don’t ever want to be like you, Bernice. But I forgive you.”

Another lesson from St. Trinian’s, Chelsea thinks as she starts driving again, ignoring Bernice’s gobsmacked look. Forgiveness is often the worst thing you can do to a person who cannot forgive themselves.

******  
Weeks pass. Chelsea is reinstated as a professor and returns to her classes, disgusted at how behind her students are. Tara is removed from academic probation, with profuse apologies from the University. Things return to normal. She has lunch with Chloe and Peaches once a week. She calls her friends frequently during the week, to rant or ramble or listen to them do the same. She teaches her students, a mix of the lazy, the determined, and the indifferent. She goes home to her wife, whom she loves more than anything else in the world. And she waits.

Before she left, Bernice had given her an almost exact duplicate of the _Pour l’amour d’elle_.

“Talked to your detective friend,” Bernice had grunted, handing over the pages. “She sent me to a forger you know, Emily or something. She’s good. This should get you back on track.”

She and Tara work on their articles, but the push isn’t as strong now. The desperation to finish, to excel, to revolutionize, is different. Chelsea still wants to change the field, but she’s going to take her time. She’s only twenty-eight. She’s only been a professor for a year. She has time.

Bernice releases the manuscript, and the reaction is as expected. A mix of shock and outrage. Chelsea is not surprised at all, but then, she’s lived through this before. She remembers the abuse levied upon her and Annabelle and the others for daring to suggest that Shakespeare was a woman. Bernice is strong, though, and endures the claims of fraud with her head held high, her tongue snapping vicious insults.

Chelsea doesn’t call Bernice. Once, she might have, to encourage her, to support her. But she knows, now, that Bernice considers her expendable. And while Chelsea forgives her, she isn’t willing to put herself in that position again. It upsets her, though. She feels sick. She spends her days in a haze of guilt, of grief. She worries that she’s doing the wrong thing by ignoring Bernice. After all, all of her friends are criminals, in one way or another. She still talks to them.

“Yes,” Peaches says patiently over an emergency tea one day, “But none of us fucked you over. There’s a world of difference.”

Intellectually, she knows that’s true. It doesn’t stop her from picking up the phone fifty times before stopping herself.

Chelsea has changed since her first days at St. Trinian’s, when she acted ditzy and foolish. She still loves fashion and sex, but they don’t consume her every thought. They don’t define her world. She isn’t as insecure as she once was. She no longer doubts her intelligence. She genuinely believes that smart is cool, is sexy. She knows who her friends are.

Chelsea Parker is many things. She is a PhD in literature. She is a loving wife. She is a Posh-Totty and a St. Trinian’s graduate. She is intelligent, brave, persistent and determined. She is honorable and loyal. And she wonders if she’s failing Bernice, her mentor.

And then she knows who she should have been talking to all along.

Miss Dickinson is sympathetic when she visits, her hair shot through with gray, lines at her eyes. She’s young yet, but she’s thrown her lot in with St. Trinian’s, and the years have taken their toll. She’s still beautiful, Chelsea thinks. Still one of the most brilliant women she has ever known.

“Did I do right?” she asks, after telling Miss Dickinson the entire story.

Miss Dickinson considers for a moment, running her fingers over her lips. “I think,” she says slowly, “that you did exactly what I would do. And I think you should remember the old school song.”

Chelsea considers for a moment, and then nods slowly. “‘We are the best,’” she quotes dutifully. “‘So screw the rest.’”

Miss Dickinson nods and smiles gently. “I’m not saying that you should screw your friends over. But she’s not going to lose credit for the discovery. Maybe she won’t be interviewed all the time, but she’ll be known in the history books. You are the _best_ , Chelsea Parker. Be proud of that. Stop worrying about Dr. Allowitz. She’s a grown woman. She can handle herself. Go out and change the world.”

It settles Chelsea in a way that a month of reassurances from her friends could not. She considers the completed article on her computer, waiting for her to release it. Finally, she knows what she wants to do. She wants to change the world.

“All right,” she says. “All right.”

And she does.


End file.
